#LIKE CRAZY RIAA CERTIFICATION

[lokisasylum]

ABOUT GODDAMN TIME👏

[aricastmblr]

"Like Crazy" recibe oficialmente su Certificación Platino RIAA. 💿

La canción vendió más de un millón de unidades en los Estados Unidos en agosto.

¡¡Felicidades Jimin!! 👏

[jimin-updates]

Congratulations, Jimin!

After a long battle of waiting for this official recognition, Like Crazy by Jimin has been certified for RIAA Platinum in the US.

He is the first k-soloist to achieve this in the last decade and the second in history.

History maker Jimin!

[main-serendipity-sky]

✨These 2 weeks in Jimin news✨

Where has time gone? 😭

•Bb end of year charts were released and Jimin is Bb history maker:

An album that he wanted to give us for free achieved all this. Things feel different when they come from the heart.

•Spotify wrapped...wrapped up too and showed us that Jimin is still a fan favorite. How many of us had our top artists as Jimin and some of the following: BTS, Kodak Black, NLE Choppa, Taeyang, or Jvke? Who would have thought?!

We also found out that:

-Jimin is the most consumed artist in South Korea

-Like Crazy is in the top 50 most streamed songs on Spotify.

-Antis and locals still stream Like Crazy

-If you are looking into a streaming service, consider Tidal.

•This picture of Jimin I found in this thread:

•We were flying high until BH announced the enlistment process of Jimin, Jk, Nam, and Tae. It's coming too soon. But Jimin will have Jk and they will be there for each other...and Jin!

•Jimin and Jk traveled to Japan to record more of their traveling show.

During this trip, Jimin started 3 global trends:

-Using Dior ☆'s as bag charms

-Standing next to a Dior Jimin ad and posing

- Eating at CoCo's in Jiminesque fashion

•PTD content was released and we got lots of Jimin.

He is always so thankful to the fans!

You can watch it here but shhh!

•Jimin's btb!

•Jimin won Best Male Artist at MAMA. More awards should have been his. Like Best Dancer, Album of the Year, Song of the Year...you get it...

The people at the Tokyo Dome are Jimin lovers too because:

Read through the replies! So many people were excited and Tetris shared that excitement with us!

And after BTS was awarded the Bonsang, Jimin came to weverse to thank fans for their support to the group:

•Jimin lost the AAA award, Millions Top 10, and Bonsang because army and karmy didn't vote for him due to Jimin antis running fanbases and people following them. But we will continue supporting him even more so he can have the recognition he deserves.

•Like Crazy was "officially" certified RIAA Platinum in the US. Actually, it reached this status in August and it is one of two songs by a Ksoloist to achieve this.

He is also the first and only Asian solo artist in history to achieve:

🇨🇦 Music Canada Gold Certification

🇯🇵 RIAJ Platinum Certification

🇺🇸 RIAA Platinum Certification

🇺🇸 Hot 100 #1

Cr.

•This clip of one of my favorite BTS songs, No More Dream, where it's focused on Jimin's perfect and precise dancing.

•Jimin posting on weverse for Jin's birthday. He misses his hyung.

•Jimin being a puppykitty.

•Don't forget this magazine is coming soon...

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by men's uno HK (@mensunohk)

We are in December. Where is our Jimin!?

•This beautiful Jimin

And that's it for now. Hopefully we get some more Jimin soon so our news can be even better!

[mrs-monaghan]

Hello, I was going through the jimin tag yesterday and came across this post on your blog and normally I am not the one to respond to any kind of post and I debated if I should even say anything but this one did not sit right with me considering it is coming from someone who supposedly stans JM as well. I apologise in advance if anything I say comes across as rude as that is not my intention.

For their information, Jimin was the 1st member (and also the only korean soloist at that time) to have 3 of his solo songs (Lie, Serendipity, Filter) to be eligible for RIAA gold certification in the US in early 2022. This was before BTS even went on hiatus so what does that tell them on his song’s performance in western markets. His solo songs have overall always been one of the most loved and best performing.

Like Crazy was the fastest song by a korean soloist (including soloist with western collabs) to be eligible for a RIAA gold certification. LC on its 73rd day is pulling in streams closer to Butter and was 3rd in number amongst all BTS songs (group and collabs). LC had no playlisting or radio as compared to the other songs. If LC had little more push then it might have outcharted some the group’s most popular English songs. In Japan which is another big music market, FACE outsold BE and was just behind MOTS7 in album sales.

So not sure what is the criteria for someone being marketable if not how much loved their solo songs are or how much brands want them. So please don’t excuse away whatever the company is doing by saying it is because one person is more marketable than the other.

As u can tell anon wasn't even sure themselves if JK is the most marketable. Their point was mostly to remind people its not JK's fault that the company is negligent of Jimin. I mean this shit is still fucking happening so...

But yes I agree. Jimin is quite big in the US and in Europe. I think BH under-estimated him from jump and he proves them wrong every single time. I just wish they would give him the treatment he deserves.

[just-promise-me-jm]

Very interesting...

I am currently waiting for a pie to bake and was doing a quick scroll through the hellscape that is Twitter when I saw this post:

credit to @FJiminData

So out of all the songs that BTS and it's members have released that were eligible for RIAA certification, the last song that wasn't a JK-led project to receive certification was "My Universe", which had an eligibility date of 9/27/22. Of the 15 songs on this list that became eligible this year, only one has actually been certified - "Seven". That means that not only was "Like Crazy" not certified Platinum, but even BTS songs like "Fire","Save Me", and "Life Goes On" (which all became eligible this year for Platinum certification) weren't certified. I checked on the RIAA website and "Life Goes On" was previously certified Gold but the list is surprisingly short compared to what has been eligible. Even "Spring Day" hasn't been certified, and it became eligible in 2022.

I'm not sure exactly why this happened (anyone who has some knowledge in this area please feel free to jump in and comment) or why it has now become a priority to certify "Seven" if this is seemingly unimportant to Hybe.

It doesn't make me feel any better to see that other songs have also been neglected by the label, but it does seem to confirm that the bullshit that PJMs and other Jimin supporters have been calling attention to isn't limited to just him.

I am a firm believer that a fair and even playing field is the only way that achievements can truly be judged against each other, and there is nothing that has happened this year that leads me to believe that is what we are working with.

I'm sure ARMY/"OT7" will continue to say this doesn't matter but if they won't stand up for Jimin, shouldn't they at least stand up for the group they care so much about?

[ask-serendipity-sky]

PJMs have been asking hybe to get the RIAA certificate for Like Crazy since August, tho. It became worse when they certified Seven for obvious reasons, I don't understand how can you not see it. Hybe stopped paying for the certificates back in 2021 and then miraculously they did it again for Seven, conveniently jumping over Like Crazy. If they didn't certify Seven either, then the story would be different. The only reason why PJMs keep an eye on Jungkook is because a point of comparison is needed, and he's the one who keeps getting what Jimin is denied. When Taehyung got to release a visual album, the focus shifted, again, for obvious reasons. If Jimin didn't get more than two MVs and then the rest didn't either, that was ok, but then Taehyung came and released five MVs, so we get to complain about that the same way we get to complain about Jimin not getting his certification when another member did.

Hi,

I didn't see it on twitter. It wasn't made a big deal otherwise, I would have seen it.

Lol why is that hard to understand? I just didn't see it lol

I know the whole story of the certifications because now it became a big deal and I'm aware now.

Jk is not the only one getting stuff Jimin didn't get. Yoongi and Tae did too. Except that you all stopped hating on the other members but will continue hating Jungkook forever. Pjms have been hating on Jungkook for a long time now. And hating on jikook. And hating on jkkrs. Even before the sabotage. Don't act all innocent.

You keep an eye on Jungkook because you are waiting for him to mess up and prove jikook is not real too. My inbox is proof of that.

I'm not happy about stuff either but I dont spend the whole day hating Jungkook. Not because of jikook but because it's exhausting and not the best way to live.

However, you can complain all you want in your own blogs, twitter, and gc. No one is stopping you from doing that.

Hope that helps.

[seasurfacefullofclouds1]

So they would rather not make loads and loads of big crazy money with Zayn and Louis with basic investment but would spend enough money to buy a whole ass country on H and get minimal returns. Make it make sense.

I guess Sony planned on recouping the money with Harry’s Love on Tour (and dynamic pricing), as well as streaming revenue. I don’t think they’ve gotten the money back from sales or streams of Fine Line yet though. However, LoT is expected to generate multiples of HSLOT, which is significant money, and like Zayn, Harry is expected to have an organic continuation of high streams after his artificial residence on top streaming playlists. Acting in a major movie will also put Harry in the spotlight to sell more product.

Harry is already one of the best selling Sony artists this year. Investors see that and rarely question the money used to promote him. In any case, Sony Music isn’t in the business of losing money, so they will recoup it one way or another. They are positioning Harry as an artist that will generate big returns for many years. His popularity has grown hugely this year. I don’t see any reason why he wouldn’t stay up there, as long as his looks don’t fade.

Zayn is kept in a spot where he can’t compete with Harry for publicity, but his streams generate very good revenue for the label— not so much for Zayn. So the return on investment for Zayn is actually great. Nothing is spent on promo, but the streaming revenue is high, and the label gets bragging rights for RIAA certification. If I were Zayn, I would want to keep some of that streaming revenue for myself. If the label won’t promote him anyway, and he doesn’t plan to tour, then why have a label at all?

Louis’ situation is slightly different, because he has extensively promoted his album, but has been completely boxed out of radio play, and Spotify also acts as if he doesn’t exist. Despite initially having a big, healthy fandom, Louis’ attempts to start a solo career have been held back every step, and the post-1D bounce has faded. The label is holding him at bay. He is not seen as “a success,” so there’s no reason for investors — who aren’t fans and don’t pay attention to small artists— to notice anything strange. If he stays at Sony, there’s no reason to expect anything different.

I also hope people stop thinking of Sony’s manipulation of Louis’ career as simply “making him and Harry do stunts” and “they want to come out together.” It’s not 2012, and we’re not watching “Top 30 Cute Larry Stylinson Moments” videos.

We’re seeing Harry establish a lifelong, lucrative, guaranteed career, while Louis is deterred again and again, kept back artificially. Both these two things are caused by “Larry Stylinson.” There’s no evidence that they “share that” or “it’s mutual”— I’d love one piece of evidence. Not “they both used the same studio” or “they’re both acquaintances of Liam Gallagher.” Whereas there is factual evidence that the head of Louis’ label (Tyler Brown) supports Harry over Louis, as well as the entire Sony and Fulwell machine. They’re not in this together— quite the opposite.

[topweeklyupdate]

TØP Weekly(/Monthly) Update #44: Well That Was Fast (7/23/17)

How goes, friends. Three weeks ago, I wrote what I thought would be my last weekly update for at least several months. “They’re going on hiatus,” they said, “You won’t have enough content for months.” they said. But they didn’t count on one thing: Joshua. William. Dun.

...And, actually, a few other things. The last three weeks have given us more than enough content to give all two of you who have missed my combination of rambling and dorkery your fix. Again, I write this thinking it will be the last time I’ll write anything for several months, but who’s to say?

This Week’s TØPics:  

Sleepers and Closing the Eye

Josh at the APMAs/WTF is DEMA?

Goldfinger Album Release

We Know That Our Band Did Well in 2016... But How Well?

Major News and Announcements:

There’s been a fair bit of shenaniganry since the boys put a cap on the Blurryface Era. First, as expected, Mark dropped the final Sleepers vid. Peeps cried. Mark got some great shots. Josh got a boo-boo playing in the ocean at Hangout. Artopia notably wasn’t featured, which was a little disappointing, but it was still a great vid. The Sleepers series ended with a nifty animation of an eye closing, and we were all like, “Yeah, that makes sense, it’s called Sleepers, Tyler talks about sleep all the time, nothing new to see here.”

Then, a week later, Tyler (or somebody on the team, but let’s be real, it was Tyler) decided to destroy us.

Over the course of one day, all of TØP’s social media accounts changed their images every hour or so, in a series of pics that featured a red-filtered POV shot of a concert audience. Each image progressively shrunk in the manner of a closing eye, and each featured a different lyric related to sleep or saying goodbye mirrored across the crowd. Interestingly, the o’s in the final message were not crossed out, and instead the e’s have received horizontal slashes, perhaps indicating that the next era will feature the last part of the |-/ logo in its typography. Some people/publications freaked out, speculating it was a countdown to a new single or album, but it was pretty obvious that it was just one more nail in the coffin for the era, especially by the time it reached the above image. They’re done. They’re on hiatus. They’re not releasing music anytime soon. They’re just going to become a bunch of hermits.

...At least, until two weeks later, when Josh singlehandedly revived the fandom just as they had entered into their hiatus coma. Josh was invited to perform at the Alternative Press Music Awards, held this year in Cleveland instead of Columbus, but still not far from home at all (Tyler was likely on vacation and couldn’t attend, though the image of him staying at home with Jenna and his leaf blower rather than go to what I would argue is easily the worst awards ceremony in the music industry is really amusing). 

We’ll get to the performance in just a bit, but we first gotta address the fact that they won an award for Most Dedicated Fanbase. Josh (dressed in camo pants, a band t-shirt, and a baseball cap and yet still looking more professional than almost anyone else at the show), gave all the credit to the fans as expected, but also got in a couple of good jokes about how he is actually the most dedicated Twenty One Pilots fan. The most noticeable part of the speech, however, came at the beginning, when Josh explained Tyler’s absence by saying he was “cutting ties with DEMA [sic?]”.

As expected with the Clique, fan speculation immediately ran wild, and while the immediate reaction seemed to be that he was referencing some security agency that wasn’t properly doing its job, things quickly got out of hand when that son-of-a-gun Blurryface hopped back on his Twitter after months of silence (even through all of Tour de Columbus) to like a fan theory speculating that it was an esoteric reference to the eye-shaped Towers of Silence, old Zoroastrian structures (notably shaped kinda like eyes) on which the dead were left to be eaten by birds. That is awesome, intriguing, infuriating, and worrying at the same time. What’s going on in your head, Ty Jo? Are you just trolling? Are you outsourcing fans to give you cool ideas? What gives? Does any of this even count as news? Who cares, we’re all just flying through space on a speck, live a little.

One last bit of news: the new Goldfinger album The Knife, which features drumming from Jishwa on the song “Orthodontist Girl”, was released Saturday. It’s not really my jam, but if you’re into that sort of thing or just want to support Josh, it’s on Spotify/wherever else music is streamed or sold.

Performances, Interviews, and Other Shenanigans:

Anywho, Josh joined forces with two other amazing drummers (Adrian Young of No Doubt/DREAMCAR and Frank Zummo from Sum-41) to perform a drum medley of various pop and alternative hits. Despite (or perhaps because of) his much shorter time on the scene, Josh noticeably attracted much more noise from the teens in attendance. The performance featured everything from marching snares, audience members holding drums, exploding golf balls, pretty spotty audio mixing/camera work, Josh busting out a backflip, a pretty sick remix of “Ride”, and Josh playing “All Star” on the trumpet. It was pretty surreal.

Other than that, not much to report. Tyler has gone almost completely dark since the end of TDC, and even Josh hasn't been up to anything besides the APMAs and some occasional drum promotions. But there's still more to cover, if you can believe...

Chart Performance:

It's back! My old recurring segment's been kept mostly on the back-burner ever since "Heathens" left the Hot 100, but Billboard and the RIAA gave us a little more sales info about our band that I felt warranted coverage. First, some of the RIAA certifications for the band have been updated. “Message Man” has gone gold (500,000 approximate sold units), while “Holding On To You” and “House of Gold” have both gone platinum (one million). The big singles- in ascending order, “Ride”, “Heathens”, and “Stressed Out”- are now 4x, 5x, and 6x Platinum respectively. Nutty. Absolutely bonkers.

Next, after presumably six months of number crunching, those calculators over at Billboard released their list of the Top Money Makers of 2016. It's a pretty interesting read for any music fan, as the list includes a breakdown of the different revenue streams for each of its fifty featured artists, from how big a percentage of sales they receive in royalties to how massive their touring was in the given year. Our boys made the list for the first time ever, debuting at a whopping #13 and an estimated total of $21.1 (wtf) million. For context: that means that Tyler and Josh together made more money from their music in America in 2016 than Garth Brooks, Carrie Underwood, Future, Metallica, Maroon 5, and Elton John. 

However, like all Billboard rankings, this list contains tons of major caveats and weird arbitrary rules that makes it almost useless for actually assessing success. It doesn’t count sales in other regions, which is crazy for today’s global market and would totally reorder the list (for one, tons of the American country artists on this list would get booted out due to their negligible international sales and touring). It also doesn't cover other hugely significant revenue streams like merchandising, sponsorships, and other jobs like TV host or producer, which would likely put Twenty One Pilots quite a bit behind many of these guys for which the music is almost a secondary thing. Additionally, all of those artists have been making this kind of money much longer than our boys, and after taxes and other costs, most of that change probably isn't going directly into their bank accounts. Still, it's pretty safe to say that both Tyler and Josh are technically millionaires at this point, and it’s hard not to feel an immense sense of pride in the scale of their accomplishments. Now, I just genuinely hope they put those blessings to good use for charitable works.

A few more points from this list: The band was the top earner in 2016 in terms of publishing royalties due to their involvement with a major motion pictures soundtrack and the incredible radio support for three of their singles the whole year round. Additionally, they were the #3 most streamed artist/group of the year, just behind Drake and Kanye. They were also the biggest money-makers of any "new" group that had never previously been in this echelon of popular influence. For further context, the twelve artists that had better sales/touring years were, in ascending order, Rihanna, Billy Joel, Kenny Chesney, Kanye West, Luke Bryan, Justin Bieber, Coldplay, Adele, Drake, Bruce Springsteen, Guns and Roses, and Beyoncé- obviously, the boys are in very, very esteemed company. Finally, and perhaps surprisingly for those fans who consider Twenty One Pilots first-and-foremost a live band who are always playing shows, they were one of very few artists who did not make the majority of their money off of touring in 2016. This is not because they weren't touring their tushes off, but rather because a) they really did have an amazing sales year and b) despite what scalped ticket prices might tell you, the boys really did try to sell those tickets for much lower than what many fans were willing to pay for them. Most of the artists on this list were selling tickets up front at over $100 a pop; TØP was doing half that, and they were still up with the big boys. I'm a proud pop.

That's all for this week, folks. Not sure when I'll be back to chat again. Until then, and as always, power to the local dreamer.

[bunchoffaceclaims]

Sevyn Streeter

Gender: Female

DOB: 7 July 1986

Nationality: American

Ethnicity: Black (unspecified)

Gif Hunt tag

Amber Denise Streeter, known by her stage name Sevyn Streeter, is an American singer and songwriter, best known for being a member of the girl groups TG4 and RichGirl where she was known as Se7en. She signed to Atlantic Records and released her debut single "I Like It" in 2012.

Her her debut EP Call Me Crazy, But... was released on December 3, 2013. It sold over 17,000 copies within its first week and spawning her first top 40 hit single "It Won't Stop" and "Next". The single achieved gold certification from RIAA marking it as her biggest selling single to date. In 2015, her second EP Shoulda Been There, Pt. 1 was released. The extended play was preceded by two singles "Don't Kill the Fun" and "Shoulda Been There".

Her upcoming debut studio album Girl Disrupted is scheduled to be released in Spring 2017. The album has been preceded by the release of five singles "Prolly", "My Love for You", "D4L", "Before I Do" and "Fallen". She has written songs for artists such as Chris Brown, K. Michelle, Usher, Kelly Rowland, Ariana Grande, Trey Songz, Alicia Keys, Fantasia, Brandy, and Tamar Braxton.

[lokisasylum]

😎🔥⚔️

[aricastmblr]

RIAA X 11 dic. 2023 There’s nothing like achieving your first Gold 📀 or Platinum 💿 certification! Congratulations to the 57 artists who broke through in 2023! To see the full #RIAAClassOf list + their #LabelsAtWork, visit http://riaa.com/classof-2023.

RIAA Congratulations to the #RIAAClassOf 2023! Only 57 artists earned first-time 📀 Gold or Platinum 💿 awards in 2023. Did your favorite act make the cut? See the full list of artists: http://riaa.com/classof-2023/

Jimin y Jungkook certificado RIAA platinum

"Like Crazy" de Park Jimin ha sido certificado oficialmente Platino por la RIAA en los EE. UU. por vender más de 1 millón de unidades.

"Seven (Feat. Latto)" de JungKook ha sido certificado oficialmente como PLATINO por la RIAA en los EE. UU. por vender más de 1 millón de unidades.

Jimin y Jungkook ingresaron al RIAAClassOf 2023 en la categoría “Singles Platino” por sus certificados de “Seven” y “Like Crazy”

[jimin-updates]

Park “First and Only” Jimin

We are so proud! Congratulations, Jimin!

[davedimartino-yahoo-blog]

Don’t Stop: Fleetwood Mac’s Grammy-Winning ‘Rumours,’ 40 Years On

CIRCA 1977: (L-R) Lindsey Buckingham, Christine McVie, Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks and John McVie of the rock group ‘Fleetwood Mac’ pose for a portrait in circa 1977. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

It was the album of a generation — a bestseller boasting hits galore and a backstory that would rival Dynasty and Dallas and the other TV soaps soon to emerge.

It was made by a colorful, attractive band whose first Rolling Stone cover depicted all five band members in bed together.

The year was 1977, the band was Fleetwood Mac, and the album was Rumours.

Incredibly, it turns 40 this week, on Feb. 4.

To say that Rumours changed popular culture would not be an exaggeration. It was the album that lifted what had been a successful, long-lived, onetime British blues band into the sales stratosphere; that launched the unforgettable image of the bejeweled, twirling, scarf-bedecked, deliberately mystical singer Stevie Nicks; that was filled with catchy but often deeply personal songs about disintegrating relationships — and, not incidentally, a polished piece of pop perfection that sounds equally inspirational four decades on.

A significant amount of drugs were involved in its making.

But then, that was the ‘70s, wasn’t it?

Founded in 1967 in London by legendary blues guitarist Peter Green, Fleetwood Mac played wonderful music but changed band members with alarming regularity. By the time Rumours had come to be, gone were great slate of players including guitarists Green, Jeremy Spencer, Danny Kirwan, and America’s own Bob Welch — and in were the colorful pair of Nicks and onetime romantic partner Lindsey Buckingham. They’d joined the band in 1975, and with remaining Mac members Mick Fleetwood and then-married couple John and Christine McVie, recorded an eponymous album that — unexpectedly for all concerned — hit No. 1 and would go on to sell more than 5 million copies.

Then things really got weird.

With the last album’s success of the Christine McVie-penned “Over My Head” and “Say You Love Me” and Stevie Nicks’s own, culturally myth-making “Rhiannon,” recording a follow-up might have been a breeze. But it absolutely was not. Not helping? The decaying personal relationships of literally every band member. The McVies had split and were barely communicating; Buckingham and Nicks were a couple no more; and drummer Fleetwood himself was facing an on-again/off-again relationship with wife Jenny Boyd, which finally ended in 1978.

And about the drug thing: “Those days were crazy,” drummer Fleetwood would later tell writer Craig Rosen in his book The Billboard Book of Number One Albums (Billboard Books, 1996). “It’s no secret that we were definitely abusing drugs in those days. It was one major lunatic party.”

Finally, there was an almost freakishly obsessive drive to record a sonically perfect follow-up. The band first moved en masse to Sausalito, spent nine weeks recording material they ultimately found unsatisfactory, stopped to tour a bit while Fleetwood Mac reached Billboard’s No. 1 slot, then watched in horror as their intended master tapes for the new album started wearing thin due to multiple overdubbing.

But when it was done, it was done, and Rumours — as it was called, at John McVie’s suggestion — was first announced by the December 1976 arrival of lead-up single “Go Your Own Way,” a top 10 hit with a telling title and lyric that well represented the coming album’s emotionally turbulent themes.

And then: BOOM!

Rumours soared to No. 1, knocking off no less than the Eagles’ Hotel California, and with its surplus of new hits including “Dreams,” “Don’t Stop,” and “You Making Loving Fun,” stayed there for 31 weeks. It would later win the 1977 Grammy for Album of the Year, sell more than 45 million copies worldwide, and in 2014 receive the extremely rare diamond (translation = even better than gold or platinum) certification from the RIAA for U.S. sales of over 20 million. And that was three years ago.

But back then, success — and excess–was taking its toll. There was rough emotional going, and while other albums by this diamond-version Mac would follow — the rewarding and experimental Tusk, a live set, the mildly disappointing Mirage, and the extraordinary (and soon to be re-released in a deluxe version) Tango in the Night — Lindsey Buckingham would then depart, and things were never quite the same again.

Sort of.

While there was an unexpected respite in 1993, when the full band memorably reunited for President Bill Clinton’s inauguration ball and gave “Don’t Stop” — Clinton’s chosen campaign song — an unexpected re-performance, solo albums by nearly every Mac member was the norm for most of the ‘90s.

***

Fast forward to May 22, 1997, and guess who’s back? Live on a Burbank soundstage, celebrating the 20th anniversary of Rumours, it’s the newly reunited Fleetwood Mac: Buckingham, Nicks, Fleetwood, and the McVies. If making that album had been a case study of study of the impact of excess on business efficiency, time has changed much: From this reunion performance would come an MTV special, a separate VH1 special, a live album (The Dance), and eventually a home video release. And it all served as a preview for an upcoming live tour. Fleetwood Mac: They’re back!

It is still May 1997, a bit later, and I am sitting in a small waiting room in Conway Studios in Hollywood. In one of those uniquely journalistic scenarios, while I sit in the room, recorder and notes nearby, each of the members of Fleetwood Mac is brought in for questioning. Surreal? You bet.

Lindsey Buckingham is discussing his original reason for departing the band back in 1987. “It really was a survival move, emotionally and physically,” he says. “It was just the atmosphere was not very conducive to being creative. A lot of the people had personal problems. It was just in order to regroup — and get back on a track where I felt I was really grounded in the process again, and was sort of, in theory, doing it for the right reasons again.”

Rumours and all that it entailed did much for popular culture, but it’s a good bet it did even more for — and to — the five members of Fleetwood Mac who were a part of it.

Buckingham says the time away from the band has done him very well indeed. “I’ve settled down a lot emotionally, and a lot of that comes from just having been away,” he says. “Really, you break up with Stevie in ‘77, and then you work with her for the next 10 years. I mean, it’s just not normal. It’s just not the way it’s done.” He laughs.

“And you would think, ‘Well, 10 years, get over it, buddy,’ but certain things just did not get resolved until I removed myself from the situation. So there’s that, there’s the fact that everyone’s habits are little bit different now. I mean, Stevie especially — she’s like very reminiscent of the person I used to live with, the person I fell in love with. There’s a sweetness that was totally absent, or blank, before.”

Later, and separately, Stevie Nicks is sitting down, exuding warmth, candor, and the sort of difficult-to-pinpoint personal appeal that made her an entire generation’s most-favorite-ever Welsh Witch.

Did she ever wish things in Fleetwood Mac, back in those days, had gone down differently?

“Oh, it could never have been any different than it was,” she says with absolute conviction. “You know, Lindsey and I didn’t even drink when we joined Fleetwood. We couldn’t afford to drink. So we started drinking like anybody else starts drinking — just to handle the mental pressure. We were really young, you know? Twenty-seven years old, really, really young, and this was all so big and so heavy around us, and people expected so much from us. And all of a sudden we went from barely having enough money to pay for a small apartment to being rich overnight — and how do you deal with that when you’re 27 years old?

“You kind of don’t deal with it very well. And nobody dealt with it very well.

“But all of those problems, and all of those drugs, and all of the fun and all of the craziness, all made for writing all those songs. If we’d been a big healthy great group of guys and gals that just were, you know…” She looks for a word that conveys regular or ordinary. “…then none of those great songs would’ve been written, you know?”

Reconfirming that point of view with warmth, charm, and noticeably excessive height, lanky drummer Mick Fleetwood takes his seat at Conway and discussed the mythology of the Mac, of that Rumours time and all that came with it. And even later.

“No matter how many horrors stories people were told,” he says, “and how many horror stories we told, I think you’ll find when you speak with everyone — the reality is that we never lost, there’s a real underlying love, a true love that is fairly unique, in this band, in my opinion. We’ve all done terrible things to one another, just as lovers do. And now, we truly look at that and go, there’s business involved, but this is not business.”

It was an interesting time back then in 1997, for Fleetwood Mac and how Rumours was then perceived. Don’t forget, it came at the height of punk rock’s popular emergence, and in some ways the band and all they represented — dollars, lifestyle, conspicuous consumption — was the antithesis of all then deemed cool. But not for long. Conspicuous era hipsters like Billy Corgan and Courtney Love were singing Fleetwood Mac’s praises back then. Corgan’s Smashing Pumpkins would go on to cover “Landslide,” and Love herself took on “Gold Dust Woman” and “Silver Springs.”

Buckingham mentions it when we speak of the timeliness of the Mac’s 1997 reunion. “You’ve got this whole younger group of people whose parents used to come see shows,” he says. “And they know the Fleetwood Mac music on record, and maybe because people like Courtney and Smashing Pumpkins have sort of been vocal about saying, ‘Hey, Fleetwood Mac is, whatever, not the enemy anymore — or whatever you want to say about that. The timing of that is great.”

And while the music of Corgan and Love continues to fall in and out fashion, in 2017 the 40-year-old Rumours sounds as fresh and inspiring as ever. These days, music reviewers refer to it when they want to describe a new musical work reflecting deep personal turmoil, frazzled relationships, even gleeful excess, etc. And its impact has only grown with time. As of today, “Go Your Own Way” has been played 110,903,863 times on Spotify — and I reckon that it will continue to be listened to long after that streaming music service ends its run.

Of all people, it might be Nicks who nails what it is that makes Rumours so special.

She is recounting what it felt like to perform that material again — with Fleetwood Mac, in front of that live audience. The reception could not have been more enthusiastic, I tell her.

“It makes you feel a little bit like you’re having a kind of a holy experience,” she says, a bit of the mystic apparently hitting her. “Like we’re all going back to how we were when we heard ‘Gold Dust Woman’ on the radio — when we were driving down the street with the top down on the car, we’re all back there, and the ‘silver spoon’ and ‘dig your grave’ lyrics, and ‘Don’t Stop.’

“It’s like, when I think of those songs, I remember where I was and what I was doing when I was hearing them. And I can see it in people’s faces. I can see… it’s like all of us get to go back. For a little while in time, we get to escape back there.”

[maryseward666]

METALLICA's KIRK HAMMETT: 'At This Particular Point In Our Lives, Playing The Heavier Stuff Is Appealing To Us'

RARE BLACK METAL COLLECTIBLES

Kirk Hammett says that METALLICA's "authenticity" and "integrity" are behind the overwhelming success of the band's 10th studio album, 2016's "Hardwired… To Self-Destruct", and its extensive "WorldWired" tour, which have both been met with some of the best reviews of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame act's nearly 40-year career. "I think for right now, there's a little bit of a vacuum [for] us and bands that sound like us," the guitarist told Cincinnati CityBeat. "There are a lot of great new bands out there, but I think people yearn for something that they know is made in a real sense. I think there's a bit of authenticity that comes with us that might not be attached to some of the more contemporary bands. We can be counted on to deliver in some form or another something that's real and authentic and something that has integrity. I think that really means a lot to some people these days, when a lot of music is just kind of like made by pressing a button… People can count on us showing up with our instruments and actually making music right there in the moment. And we deliver. Whatever you hear on our album, we can play live. I will not even try to count how many bands are incapable of that. I think that's part of it." Hammett added that METALLICA naturally gravitated to a "return-to-roots" approach place on "Hardwired", which was hailed by many as the band's best work since "The Black Album." "Certainly, with [2008's] 'Death Magnetic', we learned that it was okay to embrace our past with sort of a revisionist approach," he said. "That's what 'Death Magnetic' kind of started [as]. To an extent, it's continued with ['Hardwired'], too. We like to play music from all of the different eras, and at this particular point in our lives, playing the heavier stuff just is appealing to us. It feels right to me and it feels right to the other guys in the band." Last November, METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich told The Mercury News that "Hardwired… To Self-Destruct" is possibly the band's "most successful record in 25 years in terms of reception. Obviously, this record isn't shipping as many units as records did 10 or 20 years ago," he noted. "But the perception is that it's probably our most well-received record since 'The Black Album.' So, to have that 30-plus years into your career, and to make a record that connects at that level — still — is crazy cool." Ulrich went on to say that a lot of METALLICA fans are "really taking" to the songs from "Hardwired". "Like, we'll meet people at meet-and-greets and they'll be, like, 'My favorite song is 'Now That We're Dead'' and 'My favorite song is 'Halo On Fire'. "This record is being received with the same appreciation as any of our other records. That's something that we didn't expect. And that's something that anyone who has been doing this as long as us should never take for granted." "Hardwired… To Self-Destruct" was certified platinum in April 2017 by the RIAA (Recording Association Of America). The platinum certification reflects a million equivalent album units, which blends traditional album sales, tracks sold from an album and on-demand audio and video streams. "Hardwired… To Self-Destruct" debuted as expected at No. 1 on The Billboard 200 album chart in November 2016, selling 291,000 copies in its first week of release. Both of the band's previous outings, the aforementioned "Death Magnetic" and 2003's "St. Anger", sold more copies in shortened sales weeks. "Death Magnetic" moved 490,000 copies in a three-day window, while "St. Anger" shifted 418,000 copies in a similar frame. "Hardwired... To Self-Destruct" consists of two discs, containing a dozen songs and nearly 80 minutes of music. [Read More ...]

MY BLOG: http://www.rockoutwithyourcockout.com/

from Rock Out With Your Cock Out http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/metallicas-kirk-hammett-at-this-particular-point-in-our-lives-playing-the-heavier-stuff-is-appealing-to-us/ via IFTTT

[just-promise-me-jm]

I'm tellin' y'all, it's a sabotage

I have been trying to figure out how to talk about the ongoing mistreatment/sabotage/fuckery that has been happening to Jimin this year and there is so much to cover that kept hitting a wall when I tried to write how I feel about it all.

This is one of the main reasons that I decided to create this blog, beyond just wanting to scream into the void about how amazing I think he is. I have been lurking on Twitter and Tumblr for long enough to see how few people have chosen to continually speak out about how Jimin has been treated. This is especially true of "OT7" accounts (and honestly who is even surprised at this point about that), but I've also seen it happen in accounts where I thought they would have cared more about Jimin (this mostly applies to shipping accounts where Jimin is supposed to be half of the duo they are supporting).

All of this has lead me to the point where I can't in good conscience support anyone who doesn't continue to bring these issues up or recognize the blatant unfairness that continues to happen.

In what is just the latest example, Jimin's "Like Crazy" reached the milestone of selling over 1,000,000 units in the U.S. back in August. He was the first K-Soloist to achieve this in 2023 and the fastest to do so.

credit to @PJM_data

This means that he would have met the requirements to go platinum, a great achievement for any artist. Unfortunately, getting certified involves the record label and clearly they haven't made it a priority to certify Jimin's achievement.

This alone is a problem, but the fact that Jungkook has now been certified platinum for "Seven (feat. Latto)" shows that the label clearly knows that this is something important and understands how to make this happen for their artists.

This tweet by @jiminiemelody really sums up my feelings:

Imagine being the first to achieve this impressive milestone 3 months ago and entitled to be the first Korean solo artist to get RIAA platinum certification but the label intentionally neglected and giving the record to their chosen one??? What would so-called armys say? Jimin… pic.twitter.com/fnQrLwIpKr

— JIMIN NOONA🪽 (@jiminiemelody) November 7, 2023

How anyone can not see how this is a problem is beyond me, but then I remember that ARMY/"OT7" never want to acknowledge any real issues that are happening with BTS or within the fandom, especially when it comes to Jimin.

I'm not naive enough to think that anything I say on this blog is going to change anyone's opinion who doesn't already agree with me or magically make Hybe (or whoever it is that has a vendetta against Jimin) stop their bullshit. But I do think it's important to call it out when we see mistreatment happening, regardless of how many people want to ignore it.

I know that Jimin Karma will come back to bite them all in the end, because while I don't have faith in much, I do have faith in him.