Tool
Fear Inoculum
Digital
Label: RCA Records
Release date: August 30, 2019

I’m not going to lie and tell you that I’m a diehard fan of TOOL. Sure, I really got pretty hot and heavy into the band’s 1993 debut LP, Undertow — Beavis & Butt-Head can have that effect on a young mind. Plus, it’s a fantastic freaking album that holds up really well even to this day. But I only got into subsequent releases on a marginal basis. I listened to them if I could find them legally without paying for them. And considering their last studio album released was 13 years ago, I couldn’t even tell you what that legal method was. Probably CD loaners from friends or the library.

But this year’s Fear Inoculum was one that my circle of music peeps was very heavily anticipating. This includes my IRL friends, my co-workers, my online friends… we were all looking forward to it very, very much.

Ric Ocasek, lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, and frontman for the rock group The Cars, was found dead today in his Manhattan townhouse, per the NY Post, who confirmed the news with an NYPD spokesperson. The musician reportedly was found unresponsive in his bed by his estranged wife, the model/actress Paulina Porizkova, and appeared to have died of natural causes. He was 75.

Born Richard Theodore Otcasek on March 23, 1944, the singer, guitarist, and songwriter grew up in Baltimore, Maryland before moving with his family at 16 to Cleveland, Ohio, where he went on to meet future Cars bassist/singer Benjamin Orr. After several musical projects together after relocating to Boston, the duo formed The Cars in late 1976 along with lead guitarist Elliot Easton, keyboardist Greg Hawkes, and drummer David Robinson.

The Knack‘s driving power pop tune number one smash “My Sharona“ celebrated its 40th anniversary recently, without nary a pomp and definitely no circumstance.

But make no mistake, to be in the summer of 1979 back then, there was nothing bigger on radio or arguably on the music scene at the time than The Knack, with their brash unapologetic attitude, and a sexism in their music that would be all but forbidden if released today. By 1979 punk music was starting to ebb in terms of curiosity and shock value and the later named “yacht rock” was beginning to bubble up, evident in bands like Ambrosia and the solo works of Kenny Loggins and Christopher Cross, all with a sonic kind of pullover sweater over the speakers sound to it and all beginning at the end of the 1970s.

A new trailer has been released for the much-anticipated adaptation of Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell‘s hit Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books, which comes from director André Øvredal (Trollhunter, The Autopsy of Jane Doe) and producer Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water, Pan’s Labyrinth).

The trailer, which can be found below, will be of interest to anyone excited about the movie, but especially to fans of Lana Del Rey as it features the musician’s cover of the 1966 Donovan song “Season of the Witch.”

For the upcoming sequel to 2014’s Godzilla and the latest entry in Legendary’s MonsterVerse, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, a cover of the 1977 song “Godzilla” by Blue Oyster Cult was recorded.

The cover comes from Battlestar Galactica, The Walking Dead, 10 Cloverfield Lane, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Black Sails, Outlander, and God of War composer Bear McCreary and Serj Tankian of System of a Down.

You can check out the cover song below, along with a track listing for the King of the Monsters soundtrack and Blue Oyster Cult’s original if you’ve never heard it.