Download Festival, the celebrated rock festival in the U.K., has announced the lineup for its Download TV virtual festival. The three-day online event, running June 12-14, will feature headliners KISS, Iron Maiden and System Of A Down, who were all scheduled to headline this year's Download Festival before it was canceled in March due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Other confirmed Download TV artists and performances, which will broadcast exclusively via YouTube, include Korn, Deftones, Babymetal, The Offspring, The Pretty Reckless, The Darkness, Bowling For Soup and others, in addition to as-yet unannounced "special guests," according to the Download Festival website.

Viewers can tune into the Download TV online festival weekend via Download's YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram channels. 

Download TV will feature content blocks, split into daytime and evening programming, comprising "music, special interviews, unseen performances, and exclusive footage," according to the Download Festival website. 

All three headlining sets will comprise footage from previous performances. On Friday night (June 12), the festival will show footage of KISS's headlining set from Download Festival 2015. Saturday night (June 13) sees Iron Maiden sharing "nostalgic performances" and snippets from their ongoing Legacy Of The Beast World Tour, in addition to "something just for Download TV," according to the festival's website. System Of A Down closes the virtual weekender Sunday night (June 14) with footage from their performances at Download Festival throughout the years, including sets from 2005, 2011 and 2017.

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Download TV will also feature interactive content throughout the weekend, including tutorials, artist interviews, special live performances, mindfulness sessions, cook-alongs and more. The online festival will also share fan-created content via their social channels. 

Download TV is the latest virtual festival to come from the metal and rock worlds. This weekend, bands like Darkest Hour, Tesseract, Twelve Foot Ninja, O'Brother and Silvertomb, as well as members of GWAR, The Black Dahlia Murder, Anthrax and more, will be slaying the virtual stage at Slay At Home, a metal and art online festival benefitting MusiCares' COVID-19 Relief Fund and the GlobalGiving Coronavirus Relief Fund.

To view the full lineup for and to learn more about Download TV, visit Download Festival's official website. 

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Updated Friday Oct. 13, 2023 to include info about Kendrick Lamar's most recent GRAMMY wins, as of the 2023 GRAMMYs.

A GRAMMY veteran these days, Kendrick Lamar has won 17 GRAMMYs and has received 47 GRAMMY nominations overall. A sizable chunk of his trophies came from the 58th annual GRAMMY Awards in 2016, when he walked away with five — including his first-ever win in the Best Rap Album category.

This installment of GRAMMY Rewind turns back the clock to 2016, revisiting Lamar's acceptance speech upon winning Best Rap Album for To Pimp A Butterfly. Though Lamar was alone on stage, he made it clear that he wouldn't be at the top of his game without the help of a broad support system. 

"First off, all glory to God, that's for sure," he said, kicking off a speech that went on to thank his parents, who he described as his "those who gave me the responsibility of knowing, of accepting the good with the bad."

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He also extended his love and gratitude to his fiancée, Whitney Alford, and shouted out his Top Dawg Entertainment labelmates. Lamar specifically praised Top Dawg's CEO, Anthony Tiffith, for finding and developing raw talent that might not otherwise get the chance to pursue their musical dreams.

"We'd never forget that: Taking these kids out of the projects, out of Compton, and putting them right here on this stage, to be the best that they can be," Lamar — a Compton native himself — continued, leading into an impassioned conclusion spotlighting some of the cornerstone rap albums that came before To Pimp a Butterfly.

"Hip-hop. Ice Cube. This is for hip-hop," he said. "This is for Snoop Dogg, Doggystyle. This is for Illmatic, this is for Nas. We will live forever. Believe that."

To Pimp a Butterfly singles "Alright" and "These Walls" earned Lamar three more GRAMMYs that night, the former winning Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song and the latter taking Best Rap/Sung Collaboration (the song features Bilal, Anna Wise and Thundercat). He also won Best Music Video for the remix of Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood." 

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.

Watch Lamar's full acceptance speech above, and check back at GRAMMY.com every Friday for more GRAMMY Rewind episodes. 

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This year marks the 15th anniversary of San Francisco's Outside Lands, and while the festival always boasts the Bay Area's best, the 2023 lineup is especially stacked with incredible female and nonbinary talent. From aespa making K-pop history to La Doña's homecoming, the fest's latest iteration is bound to be badass.

Whether you're planning on shimmying to Janelle Monáe, spitting every Megan Thee Stallion verse, or sobbing to Lana Del Rey, Outside Lands will be bursting with energy and seemingly endless options.

As San Francisco transforms Golden Gate Park into a lavish festival ground for three days, check out these 10 performers ready to electrify the city.

Megan Thee Stallion

Time to get lit like a match. Megan Thee Stallion has been hitting stages across the country this year — from LA Pride to her hometown of Houston for the Men's NCAA Final Four — and there's no doubt she'll bring the heat to Golden Gate Park on Sunday. Though the three-time GRAMMY winner is known for her high-hype, feel-good freestyles, her latest album, Traumazine, opens up about anxiety and the importance of self-care. So whether you're having a hot or healing girl summer, her headlining set will be the spot for festgoers to let loose.

Janelle Monáe

On Friday, Janelle Monáe will usher San Francisco into The Age of Pleasure. Sensuality and freedom flood the singer's most recent album, and for Monáe's headlining show, fans can expect bursting psychedelic soul, pop and hip-hop in an evening full of color and love.

Emphasizing intersectionality and identity (Monáe identifies as nonbinary), her wide-ranging performance will traverse her trailblazing concept albums like GRAMMY-nominated Dirty Computer and The ArchAndroid. Having conquered both the big screen and the stage as a multihyphenate, Monáe's set will be nothing short of a spectacle.

beabadoobee

Hot off supporting Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, beabadoobee is headed to Golden Gate Park on Sunday afternoon. The Filipino-English singer/songwriter has carved out a space for herself between indie rock and bedroom pop, first becoming known for her sweet, spacey falsetto and her sleeper hit "Coffee" in 2020. The indie star has since expanded her worldbuilding abilities rapidly, spinning intricate scenes from her debut Fake It Flowers into her scenic second album Beatopia — similarly, beabadoobee's Outside Lands set will likely flaunt the vitality of her imagination.

Raveena

Raveena is the definition of grace, and her Friday Outside Lands set is sure to swell with serenity. Mindfulness is the objective of the singer's soulful music as she grounds herself through tranquil mixes of R&B and pop. From her 2019 debut Lucid to 2022's Asha's Awakening, her voice epitomizes comfort whether it floats through delicate strings or stony drums. At Golden Gate Park, Raveena will bring momentary, blissful peace to the festival's chaotic fun.

Ethel Cain

Ethel Cain is ready to take concertgoers to church — even on a Friday. The experimental breakout star is known for dissecting dark, Southern Gothic themes in her music, establishing herself as a rising leader in the modern alternative genre (and also in the LGBTQIA+ community, as she is a trans woman). Her debut album Preacher's Daughter only came out last year, but the critically acclaimed album swiftly earned the musician a cult following. After bewitching Coachella audiences back in April, Cain's upcoming Outside Lands set is sure to be compelling.

NIKI

More than 10 years after she wrote her first original song, NIKI is ready to storm the Twin Peaks stage. Her deeply sincere indie pop drifts with bittersweetness, and it's powerful to witness how well the Indonesian singer's intimacy translates to massive crowds.

Signed to label 88rising in 2017, NIKI soon found herself playing concerts for a growing global fan base that resonated with her heart-to-heart songwriting. Ranging from the dramatic depths of her debut album, MOONCHILD, to 2022's earnest self-titled Nicole, NIKI's Outside Lands set will be perfect for listeners who want to escape with their head in the clouds.

Lana Del Rey

Lana Del Rey is the reigning queen of summertime sadness, and she'll be doin' time at Golden Gate Park as one of Saturday's headliners. Known for spinning tales of tragic romance, the GRAMMY-nominated singer/songwriter plans to enchant audiences at Twin Peaks stage following her release of Did You Know There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Boulevard. Her discography haunts and aches, filled with everything from folky gospel to trap pop; if one thing's for sure, Del Rey's highly anticipated performance is bound to be a spiritual journey.

La Doña

Born and raised in San Francisco, La Doña is making her city proud by performing at the Bay's biggest annual music festival. Taking the Lands End stage with her 11-piece band on Friday, the Chicana musician has come a long way since picking up the trumpet at age 7.

Centering around personal identity and community, her music beautifully merges traditional Latin folk with modern cumbia, reggaeton, and hip-hop. La Doña's progressive sound just earned her a spot on Barack Obama's annual summer playlist, and less than a month later, her hometown will get to see what all of the hype is about.

aespa

When aespa takes to Twin Peaks stage Friday, they'll make history as the first K-pop act to ever perform at Outside Lands. Exploding onto the music scene in 2020, the innovative South Korean girl group gives K-pop a fresh edge, distinctively inspired by hyperpop and hip-hop. The group's name combines the words "avatar," "experience," and "aspect," representing their futuristic style that's often embellished by a metaverse aesthetic. Their mind-blowing Coachella and Governors Ball debuts hinted that aespa is ready to pull out all the stops for their Outside Lands crowd.

Maggie Rogers

Maggie Rogers knows how to break free. The 2020 Best New Artist GRAMMY nominee will get the crowd hyped for Saturday headliners Foo Fighters with an enthralling set. Although her debut album Heard It in a Past Life pulses with steady revelations, her alternative follow-up Surrender leans into sweat and desire. As she's proven at many festivals past, Rogers' show will be infused with bright energy, from the slow emotional burn of "Light On" to the exhilarating "Want Want" as the sun goes down.

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Over the past five years, some of the most famous (and infamous) stories of the music industry have hit movie theaters, from Freddie Mercury’s meteoric arrival in Bohemian Rhapsody to Elton John’s breakthrough years in Rocketman, and most recently Whitney Houston’s remarkable rise in Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody. Now it’s time for the big-screen debut of a name that might not be as familiar: trailblazing record executive Neil Bogart.

Bogart is the outsized personality at the center of a new biopic, Spinning Gold, which hits theaters March 31. The film tracks the monumental first decade of Casablanca Records, the larger-than-life label that Bogart dreamed up in the summer of 1973. 

The industry upstart defied the odds to become one of the definitive labels of the 1970s, with a highly eclectic roster that included KISS, Donna Summer, Village People and George Clinton’s Parliament. At the same time, Casablanca Records typified 1970s excess, with infamous stories of drug-fuelled parties, flagrant spending and unchecked egos — all rich material for a big-screen treatment.

Written and directed by Bogart’s eldest son Tim, Spinning Gold stars Jeremy Jordan as Bogart alongside a cast of current music luminaries in key roles, including Wiz Khalifa as George Clinton, Tayla Parx as Donna Summer, Ledisi as Gladys Knight and Jason Derulo as Ron Isley. (The hit-filled soundtrack is just as star-studded.)

After he was pushed out at Casablanca, Bogart went on to found Boardwalk Records (signing a young Joan Jett) before his tragic death in 1982, at the age of 39. In the decades since, Casablanca has had several lives, including its reinvention as a dance music label in 2012. 

To celebrate the release of Spinning Gold, we’re taking a trip back through 10 of the label’s hallmark releases from the 1970s to the 2010s. 

KISS, "Rock and Roll All Nite" (1975)

Neil Bogart’s first gamble as a label boss was on New York shock rockers KISS. Bogart signed the band to Casablanca Records on the strength of their demo tape, recorded with DIY grit alongside former Jimi Hendrix producer Eddie Kramer. While initially dubious of the group’s garish makeup, he backed their lean and mean 1974 debut album, KISS, even as it failed to ignite the charts.

As detailed in Classic Rock Magazine, KISS played Casablanca’s launch party at Los Angeles’ Century Plaza Hotel, bemusing the glamorous crowd to a flurry of smoke bombs and a levitating drum kit. Bogart stuck by his hard rockers, and in 1975 they released Dressed to Kill, featuring the undeniable anthem "Rock and Roll All Nite," one of KISS’ setlist staples to this day. 

As the story goes, Bogart, who is a credited producer on "Rock N Roll All Nite," challenged songwriters Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons to write the definitive KISS song. Later in 1975, the band hit No. 9 on the Billboard 200 with the live album, Alive!, and their fire-breathing, fake-blood-spitting path was set. 

Parliament, "Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker)" (1976)

If KISS represented one extreme of Casablanca’s early catalog, George Clinton’s Parliament confirmed there was no rulebook. Bogart recognised Clinton’s shambolic genius early on, signing the bandleader and his funk disciples to Casablanca in 1973. After a pair of slow-burning albums, in 1975 Parliament released Mothership Connection, an outlandish concept record exploring afrofuturism in outer space.

On an album that sounded like nothing else out there, "Give Up The Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)" was a supremely funky standout. It became Parliament’s first certified million-selling single and gave the group the cachet to build their signature stage prop, The Mothership, which landed theatrically mid-show in a swirl of smoke. 

Donna Summer, "I Feel Love" (1977)

Bogart’s circle of gifted friends included Giorgio Moroder, the Italian producer behind the hallowed Musicland Studios in Munich, Germany. In 1975, Moroder played Bogart a song he’d produced for an up-and-coming American singer named Donna Summer, who was living as an expat in Munich after appearing in the musical Hair.

That song was "Love To Love You Baby," a slow, slinky disco number that, on Bogart’s insistence, morphed into a 17-minute version. In its extended form, "Love To Love You Baby" seduced dance floors and took disco into a new realm of slow-burning sexuality. 

In 1976, Summer returned to Musicland Studios with Moroder and his studio partner Pete Bellotte to record "I Feel Love," released on Casablanca the next year. Still exhilarating and influential to this day, the record’s futuristic synth sound cemented Casablanca as the go-to disco label. 

Village People, "Y.M.C.A." (1978)

With Donna Summer now a certified star, Bogart found his next disco hitmakers in Village People. Founded in 1977 by French dance producers Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo, and fronted by vocalist Victor Willis, the group emerged from and celebrated New York’s gay club culture, with each member adopting a "macho man" persona and costume.

Village People’s third album on Casablanca, 1978’s Cruisin’, featured the instant earworm "Y.M.C.A.," which hit No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1979. A winking advertisement for the fraternal pleasures of the Y.M.C.A., the song became a gay anthem and paved the way for future hits "In The Navy,” "Go West" and an actual song called “Macho Man.” 

"[Casablanca] was a very trendy label," Belolo recalled to DJHistory in 2004. "Neil Bogart was known as an entrepreneur who had the guts to take risks, and he was a very good promoter." 

KISS, "I Was Made For Lovin’ You" (1979)

Released on their 1979 album, Dynasty, "I Was Made for Lovin’ You" proved even KISS weren’t immune to disco fever. Coming two years after the hard rocking Love Gun album, this glam, light-on-its-feet return had some fans reeling.

Co-written by Paul Stanley with pop songwriters Desmond Child and Vini Poncia, the single sold over 1 million copies and remains a favorite sing-along at KISS shows. To this day, its detractors include none other than Gene Simmons, who never liked his pop-tinged vocal part. 

Cher, "Take Me Home" (1979)

While Casablanca was founded on new talent, by the late 1970s, the label was courting already established stars. With 14 albums to her name by 1977, Cher met Neil Bogart through her then-boyfriend Gene Simmons. After a run of underperforming releases, Cher came around to trying disco.

"Take Me Home," Cher’s shimmering foray into the still-hot genre, unleashed her inner disco diva, which she explored further on two Casablanca albums, Take Me Home and Prisoner. While the legendary singer later strayed from disco, the lush, Studio 54-soaked sound of "Take Me Home" is testament to Casablanca’s gravitational pull. 

Lipps Inc., "Funkytown" (1980)

As the 1970s ticked over into the ‘80s, Casablanca went looking for the next sound. Behind the scenes, the label was in turmoil. With Polygram now overseeing Casablanca, co-founder Larry Harris quit and Bogart was pushed out. Disco’s popularity was also waning in the wake of the infamous Disco Demolition Night at Chicago’s Comiskey Park.

If times were tough, you couldn’t hear it in "Funkytown," a party-starting track by Minnesotan funk/disco band Lipps, Inc. Featuring Cynthia Johnson’s peppy vocals over a perfect marriage of synths, strings and cowbell, the song was a surprise hit for Casablanca and a gentle clapback to the disco doomsayers. 

Irene Cara, "Flashdance…What A Feeling" (1983)

Throughout its first decade, Casablanca was closely aligned with Hollywood — after all, the label took its name from the Golden Age classic starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. In the mid-’70s, the label even merged with a film production company to make Casablanca Record And Filmworks, Inc.

Following Bogart’s exit from Casablanca, the label struck gold with Irene Cara’s "Flashdance…What A Feeling" from the 1983 dance drama Flashdance. Produced by label mainstay Giorgio Moroder, the song is a pure hit of 1980s nostalgia, elevated by Moroder’s synth and Cara’s roof-raising vocals. 

"Flashdance…What A Feeling" won the GRAMMY for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and the Academy Award for Best Original Song, giving Casablanca Records one last victory lap before it folded in 1986. 

Lindsay Lohan, "Rumors" (2004)

Two decades after Jennifer Beals spun and vaulted through the music video for "Flashdance…What A Feeling," Casablanca was relaunched under Universal by veteran music exec Tommy Mottola.

One of Mottola’s early signings was "it-girl" Lindsay Lohan, who was coming off star-making roles in Freaky Friday and Mean Girls. Lohan’s 2004 debut album, Speak, featured the bonus track "Rumors," a club banger with spiky lyrics aimed at paparazzi and rumor-mongers hounding her every move. A long way from the halcyon days of KISS and Donna Summer, "Rumors" is still a time capsule to a quainter era before Instagram and iPhones. 

Mottola’s other mid-aughts signings included singer and actress Brie Larson (long before she was Captain Marvel) and pop artist Mika, whose 2007 album, Life in Cartoon Motion — and particularly its infectious lead single, “Grace Kelly” — was a breakthrough success.

Tiesto, "Red Lights" (2013)

After its brief mid-2000s run, Casablanca Records went quiet again — that is, until its next relaunch in 2012 as a dance/electronic imprint under Republic Records. Capitalizing on the EDM boom at the time, Casablanca snapped up Dutch superstar Tiesto and his label Musical Freedom.

In December 2013, Tiesto dropped "Red Lights," the lead single from his fifth studio album, A Town Called Paradise, released on Casablanca the following year. A surging dance-pop confection built for Tiesto’s then-residency at Hakkasan Las Vegas, "Red Lights" endures today as a three-minute flashback to EDM’s heyday. 

While Tiesto is no longer with Casablanca, the label has been a steady home for both veteran and rising dance acts over the past decade, including Martin Solveig, Chase & Status, Nicky Romero, Felix Jaehn and James Hype. Meanwhile, Lindsay Lohan has remained with the label, releasing her club-ready comeback single, "Back to Me,” in 2020. 

Bringing the story full circle, a resurgent Giorgio Moroder also landed back on Casablanca Records in 2016. As the story of Casablanca's glory days hits the big screen, the label's latest chapter is still being written.

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"Heavy metal is always going to be there," Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford once claimed. "At its core, it’s all about a primitive connection we all need to keep in our lives." Thanks to everything from supernatural Netflix hits and surprise reunions to massive tours and multiple accolades, this primitive connection now appears to be the strongest it’s been since the genre’s ‘80s heyday.

During a 2014 interview with GRAMMY.com, Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford acknowledged the "special bond" that "all metal bands have with the fans [who] support them." Thanks to everything from supernatural Netflix hits and surprise reunions to massive tours and multiple accolades, this special bond now appears to be the strongest it’s been since the genre’s ‘80s heyday.

Of course, its pioneers have always maintained a loyal level of support — once a metalhead, always a metalhead after all. And there have been several instances of the sound returning to the mainstream (see Black Sabbath scoring their first ever Billboard No. 1 album nearly a half-century into their career in 2013, for example, or Metallica headlining Glastonbury a year later). Yet such feats are typically few and far between.

In 2022, however, the scene has continually found itself in the spotlight, inspiring headbangers both old and new to repeatedly pick up their air guitars and show off their best devil horns. So why exactly has this resurgence occurred?

One theory is that heavy metal in its purest form offers an unmatched sense of catharsis. With the world forever teetering on the brink of disaster, what better to unleash your frustrations than by immersing yourself in walls of aggressive noise? It could also be argued that some veterans have made a conscious effort to appeal to a wider audience with their more recent material. And those creatives who grew up listening to the likes of the Big Four (Anthrax, Megadeth, Metallica, Slayer) are now able to pay tribute by incorporating their music into their latest projects.

Whatever the reasons, here are eight ways in which the heavy metal acts of yesteryear made a significant impact in 2022.

Judas Priest Get Inducted  

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has been relatively ungenerous when it comes to honoring heavy metal. It took them until 2006 to celebrate arguably the daddies of the genre, Black Sabbath, and since Metallica’s induction three years later, they’ve swerved all headbangers entirely. Until, that is, in November when Judas Priest deservedly picked up the Musical Excellence Award.

The British veterans also showed off their famous dual guitar sound while performing three of their biggest hits at the ceremony, with guest presenter Alice Cooper describing them as the "definitive metal band ... like an L.A. earthquake."

Iron Maiden Completed A Mammoth Tour 

Few acts have done more to spread the metal word than Iron Maiden. Forty-seven years on from their formation and they’re performing their distinctive brand of British metal to millions — and carting around their giant mascot Eddie across the world.

More than 3 million people attended their multi-national Legacy of the Beast World Tour, which concluded in Florida in October. The longest run of shows to feature original vocalist Bruce Dickinson since the late 1980s, the hits-focused show began in Estonia in 2018 but, thanks to COVID-19, took four years to complete. Despite a collective age approaching 400, the band have already announced they’ll be back on the road next year.

Icons Got The Documentary Treatment 

From Metallica’s Some Kind of Monster to The Story of Anvil, the heavy metal scene has spawned several compelling documentaries. And 2022 added two more to the canon. First up, there was DIO: Dreamers Never Die, which enjoyed a brief stint in cinemas in September. Produced by wife Wendy, the biopic of ex-Rainbow and Black Sabbath frontman Ronnie James Dio is an affectionate portrait which refreshingly avoids the usual rise and drug-addled fall narrative.  

Then at the opposite end of the spectrum, This Is GWAR explored the bodily fluid-spewing, monster-costumed history of the titular shock rockers in a hugely entertaining watch which, rather aptly, premiered on horror streaming service Shudder.    

Classic Metal Acts Received GRAMMY Nominations 

The Best Metal Performance category is no stranger to classic acts, with Dream Theater, Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath all emerging triumphant during the last decade. But you have to go back to 2015 for the last time two were nominated in the same year (Anthrax and Motorhead). Ozzy Osbourne and Tony Iommi will be hoping to add to their trophy cabinet at the 2023 ceremony. But they face stiff competition from fellow survivors Megadeth and Ghost, the Swedish satanists whose bombastic riffs have drawn parallels with another veteran, Judas Priest. Metal purists will undoubtedly be hoping prog rockers Muse and hardcore punks Turnstile don’t spoil the party.   

Pantera Reunite, And Bring Friends

Pantera’s story looked to have ended in 2004 when guitarist Dimebag Darrell was murdered by a crazed fan on stage. Even more so when another founding member, Vinnie Paul, passed away from coronary artery disease in 2018. But 22 years on from their last album, Reinventing the Steel, remaining members Phil Anselmo and Rex Brown announced they were heading out on a North American tour which would also include dates with Judas Priest and Metallica. Black Label Society frontman Zakk Wylde and Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante will temporarily join the group who, thanks to the likes of 1994’s chart-topping Far Beyond Driven, very nearly muscled their way into the Big Four.   

"Stranger Things" Gives Metallica Classic A Second Wind 

Kate Bush’s "Running Up That Hill" wasn’t the only ‘80s classic to enjoy a new lease of life after featuring in the mammoth fourth season of Netflix phenomenon "Stranger Things." Metallica’s "Master of Puppets" also returned to the Hot 100 thanks to the guitar heroics of Joseph Quinn’s Eddie Munson. His impressive rendition not only gave the metal giants their highest chart peak since 2008 but also introduced a whole new generation to the sound of James Hetfield and co. Admirably, the band themselves were far from precious about the whole thing, revealing they were blown away by the concept and later inviting Quinn for a Lollapalooza jam session.   

Megadeth Enjoy A Triumphant Return 

To say that the recording of Megadeth’s first new album in six years was troubled is putting it mildly. Firstly, lead singer Dave Mustaine was diagnosed with throat cancer shortly after hitting the studio with co-producer Chris Rakestraw. And then founding bassist David Ellefson found himself caught up in a revenge porn scandal which ultimately resulted in his dismissal. Nevertheless, the thrash metal legends eventually managed to put all the drama behind them with The Sick, the Dying... and the Dead! equaling the No.3 peak of its 2016 predecessor Dystopia, inspiring some critics to hail it as their finest record since the early ‘90s.

Metal Continues To Infiltrate Pop Culture 

Elsewhere, Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, Anthrax’s Scott Ian and Rob Halford were just a few of the iconic cameos in Netflix’s Metal Lords, a teen comedy about a bunch of high school outcasts who form a metal band. Black Sabbath stole the show at the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony with an unannounced performance of their signature hit, "Paranoid." And Ozzfest became the first in-real-life festival to enter the metaverse, where those who’d invested in co-founder Ozzy Osbourne’s CryptoBatz NFTs could also enjoy a better vantage point by morphing into a bat. Because why not?

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