The Red Hot Chili Peppers wrapped their multi-year, multi-continent tour with the biggest business of their multi-decade career. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, the Unlimited Love Tour sold 3.4 million tickets over 86 shows.

Among rock tours, it finishes as the third best-selling trek this decade, only behind Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres World Tour and Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour.

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Though not eligible for Boxscore reporting, the Red Hot Chili Peppers closed out this touring cycle with a performance tonight (Aug. 11) at the LA28 handover celebration at the Closing Ceremony of 2024 Olympics, where Paris passes the torch to the Chili Peppers’ hometown of Los Angeles for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Boxscore totals only include grosses for ticketed headline shows, whereas the Olympics performance is part of a larger televised event.

The Unlimited Love Tour supported its namesake album, which was released in April 2022, as well as Return of the Dream Canteen, which followed in October of that year. Both sets led the Top Rock Albums chart, and the former crowned the all-genre Billboard 200.

The Unlimited Love Tour kicked off on June 4, 2022 with a performance at Estadio de La Cartuja in Sevilla, Spain. That show launched a 12-show leg in Europe that sold 659,000 tickets. Next was 19 shows in the U.S. and Canada, adding 807,000 tickets. That remains the highest-grossing and best-selling leg of the tour.

What followed was a parade of shows in Asia, Latin America, and Oceania, plus returns to Europe and North America before closing on July 30 in Maryland Heights, Mo. While the first stateside run claimed top honors for cumulative gross and attendance, the Chili Peppers’ string of eight shows in Australia and New Zealand (January-February 2023) boasted the best per-show ticket sales, averaging 47,326. Those dates were helped by the presence of Post Malone, joining while on his Twelve Carat Tour.

As for individual engagements, the biggest was a double-header at England’s London Stadium on June 25-26, 2022. Those two combined for 142,000 tickets sold. Among one-night-stands, it’s the Nov. 10, 2023 concert at Estadio do Morumbi in Sao Paulo, where the band played to 71,000 fans.

These final figures represent an entirely new peak in the Chili Peppers’ career. Though the band had dabbled with stadium shows before, this was its first full tour in the top-capacity venues. The tour’s 3.4 million attendance total is about 3.5x the group’s previous best, when the By the Way World Tour sold 979,000 in 2002-03. On average, the tour paced 39,761 tickets per show, up from 14,291 on the 1995-96 One Hot Minute Tour.

Dating back to a 1985 Halloween show at New York’s The Ritz, the Red Hot Chili Peppers have sold 8.6 million tickets over 498 reported shows.

An exhibition at Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture has sparked a heated conversation about the real-life use of the slang term “un-alived,” which was spotted on a MoPOP placard that says Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain “un-alived himself at 27.”

Cobain died by suicide at age 27, on April 8, 1994. The Seattle museum shared this fact on an information card about the “27 Club” (a grouping of artists who all tragically passed away at the young age of 27), various patrons have reported.

But in place of “died by suicide,” MoPOP printed the internet slang “un-alived,” with the exhibition placard reading, “Kurt Cobain un-alived himself at 27.” The museum additionally put up a placard about the social context of the term’s usage in the digital age, also noting that “the Guest Curator has chosen to utilize the term as a gesture of respect towards those who have tragically lost their lives due to mental health struggles.”

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On Saturday (Aug. 10), Stereogum pointed out many on social media were likening saying the word “un-alived” in real-life discussions regarding mental health — rather than using it only to circumvent censorship from algorithms on internet platforms like TikTok — to the dystopian world of George Orwell’s 1984, despite the museum’s explanation.

Orwell wrote of “Newspeak,” a simplified, government-directed language intended to limit critical thinking, in the novel. One element of the fictional Newspeak grammar included tagging the simple prefix “un” onto words, instead of developing an expanded vocabulary.

“this is what george orwell was warning us about with 1984,” read one comment on X (formerly Twitter) posted Friday about the museum exhibit material using the word “un-alived.”

“That moment when it wasn’t the government but youtube and social media which caused newspeak from 1984 to become a real thing lmfao,” another person on X added. “And people still say that ‘these are private companies, they don’t have to allow speech they don’t want!’ Yes they do, they are the town square now.”

Meanwhile, another user on the platform offered a different perspective: “It’s MOPop who cares. Their exhibits talk in internet lingo all the time because it’s about pop culture. It’s basically a glorified collection showcase. Twitter people saw the word ‘museum’ and lost their s—.”

Meanwhile, someone else quipped, “This will help them [the museum] go viral on tiktok.”

By Sunday evening, the conversation thread had a new reply with an updated photo — one that showed the wording on the placard has apparently been changed, with “un-alived” being edited to “died by suicide.”

Madonna is wishing her oldest son a happy birthday.

On Sunday (Aug. 11), the Queen of Pop shared a sweet tribute on social media in honor of her son Rocco Ritchie’s 24th birthday. To commemorate the special occasion, she shared 20 age-spanning photos and videos of Rocco, whom she shares with ex-husband Guy Ritchie.

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“HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROCCO— the long and Winding Road through all your many moods and incarnations has been tumultuous and full of surprises,” Madonna captioned the gallery on Instagram. “But through it all —your curiosity, and Artistic Soul has been the glue that held us together.”

She added, “Thank God for Art. Thank God for you. We have been together for many lifetimes. Thank you for choosing me again. Love you -for Eternity.”

The “Like a Virgin” hitmaker’s post opened with a recent photo of Rocco embracing his mother while kissing her forehead, and spanned the years with several images documenting her son’s numerous hairstyles and his artwork. She concluded the carousel with a current snapshot of the pair enjoying a beautiful boat ride.

In addition to Rocco, Madonna is also mom to her daughters, 27-year-old Lourdes Leon and 18-year-old Chifundo “Mercy” James, as well as her sons, 18-year-old David Banda and 11-year-old twins Estere and Stella.

Earlier this year, the pop icon shared her experience of attending Rocco’s art show in Miami. “So happy to have the night off to enjoy my son Rocco’s latest collection of paintings called ‘Pack a Punch’ inspired by Muay-Thai fighters,” she captioned her post.

See Madonna’s happy 24th birthday post to Rocco on Instagram below.

Shawn Mendes‘ “Why Why Why” has topped this week’s new music poll that features artists in various genres of music.

Music fans voted in a poll published Friday (Aug. 9) on Billboard, choosing the 26-year-old pop star’s comeback single as their favorite new music release of the past week.

“Why Why Why” brought in 50% of the vote on the poll, securing a notable edge ahead of new releases from Katy Perry (“Lifetimes”), NIKI (Buzz), Beabadoobee (This is How Tomorrow Moves), Latto (Sugar Honey Iced Tea), J Balvin (Rayo), and others.

On Friday, Mendes made his comeback with “Why Why Why,” which leads his upcoming album, Shawn, which is scheduled for release on Oct. 18. The project is the star’s fifth studio album and follows 2020’s Wonder as well as his previous self-titled project, 2018’s Shawn Mendes.

“I stepped off the stage with nothing left/ All the lights were f—ing with my head,” the singer-songwriter admits on “Why Why Why,” a highly compelling piece of folk-pop that finds him vulnerable to the point of sounding haunted, two years removed from cancelling a tour due to mental health purposes.

Last month, Mendes shared a message for fans about the project, writing “Music really can be medicine. 2 years ago I felt like I had absolutely no idea who I was. A year ago I couldn’t step into a studio without falling into complete panic. So to be here right now with 12 beautiful finished songs feels like such a gift.”

Trailing behind Mendes on this week’s poll is Perry’s “Lifetimes,” with nearly 20% of the vote. The new single will appear on the pop star’s forthcoming album, 143.

See the final results of this week’s poll below. Check out Billboard‘s Friday Music Guide to catch up with more must-hear releases from this week.

Streaming platform Disney+ announced on social media that it partnered with Austria’s ORF to broadcast Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) on television for free Saturday night (Aug. 10), one of three evenings that Swift was supposed to perform live in Vienna. The Vienna Eras Tour dates, scheduled for Aug. 9, 10 and 11, were canceled earlier this week due to the threat of a terror attack at the city’s 65,000-capacity Ernst Happel Stadium.

The streamer addressed a letter posted to Swift’s fans (“Dear Swifties”) on the Disney+ DE Instagram account Saturday afternoon (Aug. 10) that, translated from German to English, announced the free TV showing of The Eras Tour film.

ORF, a national broadcaster in Austria, showed Swift’s concert movie at 9:45 p.m. local time on the public channel ORF 1.

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Disney+ also offered a free 7-day trial subscription for those who wish to stream Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour on the platform in Austria and Germany. The announcement, which states the promotion runs through Aug. 12, is pinned to Disney+ DE’s account.

Three people were detained by Austrian authorities earlier this week in connection with a potential terror attack at Swift’s now-canceled Eras Tour concerts in Vienna. An 18-year-old man was arrested on Thursday, following the previously reported arrests of 19-year-old and 17-year-old suspects taken into custody on Tuesday. Officials described a plot to carry out what could have been a mass casualty event among the crowd of fans outside Ernst Happel Stadium.

Swift has not publicly commented on what happened in Vienna, with news of the event cancelations first delivered on Wednesday via Barracuda Music, the concert promoter for the pop star’s Austrian tour dates: “With confirmation from government officials of a planned terrorist attack at Ernst Happel Stadium, we have no choice but to cancel the three scheduled shows for everyone’s safety. All tickets will be automatically refunded within the next 10 business days,” read the promoter’s statement, which was reposted by Taylor Nation, an account associated with Swift’s team.

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Vienna, where Swift was set to play three nights in a row, was to be the second-to-last city on the map for the European leg of The Eras Tour.

The Tortured Poets Department hitmaker is currently scheduled for five nights at London’s Wembley Stadium (Aug. 15, 16, 17, 19 and 20), followed by a break before she resumes the tour in North America from October-December — with multiple dates in the cities of Miami, New Orleans, Indianapolis, Toronto and Vancouver.

Rod Stewart has tested positive for COVID-19, leading to the cancelation of two summer concerts that were originally scheduled for Aug. 9-10.

“We regret to announce that tonight’s Rod Stewart concert in Stateline, NV and his August 10 show in Lincoln, CA have been postponed, as the singer recovers from a summer strain of Covid-19,” a statement posted on Stewart’s Instagram account said on Friday night (Aug. 9), hours before he was expected to take the stage.

The shows have already been rescheduled, his team announced on the same update. Stewart, 79, is set to perform at Thunder Valley Casino in Lincoln, California, on Aug. 18; two days later he’ll take the stage at Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena at Harveys in Stateline, Nevada, on Aug. 20.

It’s also been shared that “ticket holders should hold on to their tickets as they will be honored for the rescheduled shows.”

Stewart’s illness follows the singer missing the 200th show of his long-running Las Vegas residency at Caesars Palace on Wednesday, when he cited strep throat as the reason for his absence. At the time, he noted on Instagram, “Most people can work with strep throat but obviously not me. I’m absolutely gutted. I’ve been looking forward to this concert for so long. My deepest regrets for any inconvenience this has caused.”

Those who missed out on his Vegas run will get another chance to catch the star at Caesars Palace in 2025, at encore dates of his residency show during select weekends in March, May and June of next year.

“Vegas, I’m having too much fun for this to end so we are coming back for an encore! Don’t miss The Encore Shows Las Vegas Residency at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace March 12-22 & May 29-June 8!” Stewart wrote to fans on Aug. 7. Tickets for Stewart’s 2024 concert dates will go on sale Monday (Aug. 12) at 10 a.m. PT; ticket details for the residency dates are available here.

See Friday night’s post about Stewart’s COVID diagnosis below.

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Robin Allen, best known by her rap moniker “The Lady of Rage,” portrays self-proclaimed psychic Miss Cleo in a new Lifetime movie premiering on Saturday (Aug. 10).

Miss Cleo: Her Rise and Fall follows the highs and lows of Miss Cleo, whose birth name was Youree Dell Harris. The Los Angeles native became a popular fixture during the late ’90s and early 2000s through her work with Psychic Friends Network, but her stardom came crashing down after the network was accused of scamming customers.

Shane Johnson, Daphne Maxwell Reid, Cocoa Brown, Dwayne Boyd, Towanda Braxton, Jaida Standberry, Marley Taylor, Amelia Young, Stevie Baggs Jr. and Leslie Black star in Miss Cleo: Her Rise and Fall, which is directed by Tim Reid and written by Camara Davis.

The movie is produced by Hillionaire Productions for Lifetime along with Jami McCoy-Lankford, Samone Norsworthy and Anthony Standberry. William J. Cone is a consulting producer, Ahmed Hussain and McCoy-Lankford serve as executive producers.

Keep reading for ways to watch the movie online for free.

How to Watch

Miss Cleo: Her Rise and Fall premieres at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Lifetime. To watch without cable, join DirecTV Stream or Philo for instant access to Lifetime and other cable channels, and a free trial when you sign up.

Philo is the most affordable streaming option among the two. Plans start at $28/month after a free trial for one week.

The streaming service features 80+ channels (Lifetime, MTV, BET, TLC, VH1, CMT, WEtv, A&E, ID, Travel Channel, OWN, AMC, Comedy Central, etc.) that you can watch live or stream on-demand. A subscription to Philo includes cloud DVR that can be stored for up to a year. 

DIRECTV Stream starts at $49.99 per month for a limited time. Stream 90+ live channels, including cable networks such as Lifetime, E!, Bravo, HGTV and MTV, as well as local channels like ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.

For a limited time, new subscribers can save up $39 per month over three months with select DirecTV streaming plans.

Want more ways to watch? Miss Cleo: Her Rise and Fall will be available to stream on Prime Video a day after it airs on Lifetime.

Watch the trailer below.

Celine Dion‘s team is criticizing Donald Trump for his unauthorized use of her Titanic classic at a recent campaign rally.

On Saturday (Aug. 10), Dion’s management team and record label released a statement on social media slamming the former president for including her 1998 hit “My Heart Will Go On” in a playlist during his rally in Bozeman, Mont., on Friday. Attendee-captured videos from the event also show a video of Dion singing the famous track.

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“Today, Celine Dion’s management team and her record label, Sony Music Entertainment Canada Inc., became aware of the unauthorized usage of the video, recording, musical performance, and likeness of Celine Dion singing ‘My Heart Will Go On’ at a Donald Trump / JD Vance campaign rally in Montana,” the statement on X (formerly Twitter) began. “In no way is this use authorized, and Celine Dion does not endorse this or any similar use. …And really, THAT song?”

“My Heart Will Go On,” which spend two week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in February 1998, closed out the Oscar-winning film about the 1912 shipwreck. The ballad was co-written by Titanic composer James Horner with Will Jennings.

Some social media users poked fun at Trump’s ironic use of the song during his rally. “Perfect – because when your campaign’s headed for an iceberg, you might as well set it to music,” one person wrote on X.

Another X user observed, “Is Trump’s campaign being trolled from within? Someone on his staff decided to play Celine Dion singing ‘My Heart Will Go On’ from Titanic at his Montana rally. Many consider Titanic a metaphor for Trump’s sinking campaign.”

Trump will face off against Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming 2024 presidential election after President Joe Biden bowed out of the race. The two candidates will appear in a debate scheduled for Sept. 10 on ABC.

Dozens of top artists and songwriters have objected to Trump’s use of their songs at political rallies since he first ran for president in 2016, including The Rolling Stones, Adele, Rihanna, Sinead O’Connor’s estate and Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler. 

See Dion’s post on X below.

The first trailer for the upcoming live-action Snow White movie has arrived.

Disney revealed the teaser for the remake of the classic 1937 animated film during D23 in Anaheim, Calif., on Friday (Aug. 9). Snow White, starring Rachel Zegler as the titular character and Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen, is scheduled to arrive in theaters on March 21, 2025.

The one minute, 17-second trailer opens with Zegler dancing and singing “Whistle While You Work” with the seven dwarfs and later gives a sneak-peek Gadot menacingly peering into her magic mirror.

“It’s been the honor of a lifetime,” Zegler said of taking on the beloved Disney princess (per Variety). “I think any young person, any little girl if you get to put on a Disney princess dress and be her for a day let alone six months… it’s just been the most amazing experience and I cant wait to share it with you all.”

Gadot added, “It was a lot of fun to get to do something that is completely different than anything I’ve ever done before. She’s delicious, she’s evil, she’s magical. We got to sing all these different songs. It was incredible.”

Snow White is directed by Marc Webb, who is known for his Amazing Spider-Man movies, and includes songs from The Greatest Showman and Dear Evan Hansen‘s Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.

The film was originally set to open in March of this year, but was pushed back by Disney because of the SAG-AFTRA strike.

Watch the Snow White trailer on YouTube below.

During a chaotic week for stock markets around the world, Universal Music Group (UMG) shares rose 3.3% to 22.15 euros ($24.20), enough to make the Amsterdam-listed company the top-performing music stock of the week.

Stocks were hammered on Monday (Aug. 5) as markets reacted to a disappointing U.S. jobs report the prior Friday (Aug. 2), leading to mounting concerns the economy could fall into a recession. The Billboard Global Music Index fell 2.0% on Monday, though it experienced a lighter decline than both the Nasdaq (down 3.4%) and the S&P 500 (down 3.0%). Investors didn’t panic, however, and markets made gains over the remainder of the week. On Friday (Aug. 9), the Nasdaq closed down 0.2% for the week while the S&P 500 broke even. 

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UMG received a boost on Wednesday (Aug. 7) from Warner Music Group’s quarterly earnings report — a welcome change after a second-quarter slowdown in UMG’s streaming growth so worried investors that the company’s shares fell 24% the following day. WMG’s latest earnings results, which showed that recorded music streaming revenue grew 8.7% after a few adjustments, may have convinced some UMG investors that they overreacted. In light of this new information, UMG shares jumped 6.6% to 22.74 euros ($24.85) on Wednesday. Notably, this Friday’s closing price is 14% above the lowest closing price — 21.12 euros ($23.08) — since the 24% decline occurred on July 25. 

WMG shares rose 0.3% to $28.34 this week after the company announced that quarterly revenue dropped 1% and net profit improved 14%. The third-largest major’s streaming gains satisfied some, but not all, analysts. Morgan Stanley analysts cited “lowered streaming growth outlook” in lowering their price target to $35 from $41. Guggenheim, encouraged by WMG’s subscription revenue growth acceleration and performance relative to UMG, maintained its $44 price target. JP Morgan, which sees WMG as “well positioned” to capture paid streaming adoption, left its $41 price target unchanged. 

The Billboard Global Music Index, a float-adjusted measure of 20 companies’ market capitalizations, rose 3.1%, breaking a streak of four consecutive weeks with a loss. Spotify, the index’s largest component, gained 2.6% to $339.69. Tencent Music Entertainment, which will report earnings on Tuesday (Aug. 13), rose 2.8% to $12.97.

In the United Kingdom, the FTSE 100 declined 3.6% to 8,168.10. South Korea’s KOSPI composite index fell 3.3% to 2,588.43. China’s Shanghai composite index dropped 1.5% to 2,862.19. 

iHeartMedia shares fell 10.7% to $1.33 following the company’s second-quarter earnings on Thursday (Aug. 8). The company reported a 1% increase in second-quarter revenue and sounded optimistic that political advertising will provide a boost to the full-year results. Both third-quarter and full-year revenue are expected to be up by mid-single digits.

Shares of radio broadcaster Townsquare Media dropped 5.8% following the company’s second-quarter results on Tuesday. Revenue fell 2.5% and net loss increased to $48.9 million from $2.7 million in the prior-year period. Its $0.14 earnings per share missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.42.