Vinnie Penn

There are three types when it comes to songs in feature films: The first is the song that you just know isn’t only going to be nominated for an Academy Award but in all likelihood will win it; the second is the song that’s snubbed by the Academy in a year jam-packed with standard Oscar fare (sometimes love songs from Disney movies); the third is the song that somehow isn’t even considered and migh

Foo Fighters fans—and fans of Dave Grohl in general—know that he’s a big fan of the cover song. Fact is, Nirvana had a thing for covers, too, especially ones that their raucous audience wouldn’t, and couldn’t, see coming from a second stage away, never mind a mile. Hell, once Nirvana even ...

Duets are all the rage these days, and largely without the intention of releasing said duet as a single. Case in point: YUNGBLUD’s recent sitdown with Avril Lavigne to blaze through her hit “I’m With You.” That’s just all about making it go viral. But there was a time whe...

Remember the time Hootie And The Blowfish performed on NBC’s Friends and Monica even wound up getting a hickey from one of the band members at a meet and greet after the concert? Of course you do. You probably also remember that the band actually didn’t play on the show and, even worse, weren’t seen on screen at all. There was so...

The good old days of the closest Broadway ever coming to a rock ’n’ roll experience being Jesus Christ Superstar or Hair are long gone and have been for a long time. While those shows did, and still do, rock and can even be viewed as a harbinger of things to come, the headbanging on the Great White Way is at an all-time high. Well, at l...

Replacing an original band member is never a fun experience, and there’s surely no role more difficult to fill than that of the lead singer. There have been exceptions to the rule, in the sense that the band went on to continue being successful (think Sammy Hagar in Van Halen), but there have also been more than enough singers who replaced the original and didn’t get the credit he or she deserved.

Today’s kids have no idea what they are missing when it comes to CDs being a thing of the past. Namely, the hidden track. What a thing of beauty, truly embraced in the ’90s by musicians and fans alike, only to slowly fall away come the 2000s, popping up sporadically, until the true death knell sometime around 2010. The re...

The year 2021 stands out for, at the very least, two distinct reasons. One, we all simply could not wait for it to get here and to promptly put the horrific year that was 2020 in our collective rearview mirror. And, two, it’s the year that some of the best albums of the ’90s will turn 25 years old. Yep, t...

Interestingly, some of our favorite albums ever recorded always seem to have one or two, if not more, tracks that we can just do without. The songs we hit the forward button on robotically, just as the one before it fades completely or comes to its triumphant cymbal-smashing final note...

Many bands take maintaining the same lineup quite seriously, even if it's one of the most difficult things to pull off. Especially if longevity is also high up on their list of priorities.  Those who have accomplished it wear it as a badge of honor, such as U2. Fro...

Many of you are no doubt listening to the new Gwen Stefani single and thinking back to when you first heard Tragic Kingdom. Where you were, what you were doing, how long the show Beverly Hills, 90210 could possibly last. Hate to break it to you, ’90s kids, but there are a ton of teenagers listening to the song without a clue that Stefani ever fronted a band, never mind the groundbreaking, genre-fu

Ever get into a conversation about a great song from the ’90s, only to be told it was never actually a single but a B-side instead? You’re flabbergasted and immediately begin pointing out that the band in question play the song live all the time, which is a clear indicator that if it wasn’t, at the very least, released as a single, then it’s absolutely a fan favorite that was included on one of th

There are some songs that you hear that immediately make you think of the movie they were featured prominently in, such as Celine Dion’s smash “My Heart Will Go On.” You just can’t help but think of Rose on that block of wood, pledging her love to an exhausted, descending Jack, even while she won’t just scooch over a little bit and make some room for him as the Titanic torpedoes to the bottom of t

There was a time when the “supergroup” was super obvious. When the world saw legendary axman Ted Nugent making his guitar squeal with the guy from Night Ranger to his right and a guy from Styx to his left, we all knew there was something special afoot. (Classic-r...

Would Billy Zane have been in Ben Stiller’s Zoolander if his The Phantom launched the superhero franchise it should have? Would Schmidt of the hit comedy New Girl have lampooned Zane’s celebrity status by declaring himself a “Zaniac” in one memorable episode of the sitcom if Zane’s interpretation of one of the world’s first great costumed crime-fighters wasn’t spot-on? The answer, of course, is no

YUNGBLUD doesn’t come across as someone who’d sweat superstition. Sure, he’s proven himself to be introspective, sensitive, even insecure. The new track from the Doncaster growler, “god save me, but don’t drown me out,” will be included on his forthcoming second album, Weird!. Sophomore efforts are inherently ...

When California rockers Ugly Kid Joe (whose frontman Whitfield Crane went on to briefly lead significantly harder rockers Life Of Agony) followed up their hit “Everything About You” with a fist-waving cover of the tear-jerking ’70s ballad “Cats In The Cradle” in 1992, the only word that came to mind was genius. They had vaulted onto the sc...

While a singer’s precious declaration mid-set of “Here’s a song off our new record” may be the bathroom battle cry for many at a concert (you remember those, don’t you?), there are plenty of music lovers who either can’t wait to hear some of the new stuff or already know it and went there specifically for it. Problem is, many musicians don’t t...

Anyone who says they always knew there would be another Bill & Ted movie is full of it. It’s that simple. In fact, many would say a sequel came as a complete surprise. But our stoner rockers returned many years later, the great George Carlin having passed, and Keanu Reeves doing just fine in the franchise department, thanks to The Matrix and John Wick. Why? Pro...

You know the old saying: “With great television comes great source material.” Or something like that. Fact is, comic books and graphic novels have proven to be incredible source material for TV, especially in recent years. From producer Greg Berlanti’s reign of heroism on The CW (everything from The Flash to Riverdale) to the runaway successes of Marvel’s Runaways on Hulu, The Boys on Amazon Prim