Music Blogs

Taylor Swift backstage at the CMA Festival [Photo: Chris Willman]Taylor Swift went from being invited onto the Rolling Stones’ stage a few nights ago to inviting Tim McGraw and Keith Urban onto her stage Thursday night, which was as star-studded a way as any to kick off the CMA Festival’s four nights of stadium shows in Nashville.

The home of the Tennessee Titans played host to more than one match of the titans Thursday. Not long after Swift brought out McGraw and Urban as guests for their No. 1 single “Highway Don’t Care,” the Zac Brown band upped the collaborative ante by dueting with Kenny Rogers on “The Gambler” and Kid Rock on the Grand Funk oldie “We’re An American Band.”

Before performing “Highway Don’t Care” — which, on record, at least, is officially a McGraw track — Swift sang an acoustic verse and chorus of her first hit, “Tim McGraw.” Backstage, she talked about getting the call that completed the cycle from dreamy 16-year-old fan to McGraw’s fully fledged co-conspirator.

“Honestly, Tim and Faith (Hill) have both been some of the most

Axl Rose (Photo: Mark Metcalfe)The 1983 demo by Axl Rose's' pre-Guns N' Roses band Rapidfire that turned up online last week has been pulled from the web, due to a copyright claim filed by Axl's lawyer.

The snippet of the demo of the band's recording on "Ready to Rumble" that was posted on YouTube is no longer playable. Instead it has a note that says, "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Mark Music & Media Law, P.C."

Snoop Lion has teamed up with his protégé, Polish singer and producer IZA Lach to create a new theme song for soap opera “One Life to Live.” A full-length, three-minute video version of the song "Brand New Start" premieres on Yahoo! Music.

In addition to working together on the love ballad, Snoop has executive produced IZA’s mixtapes “Off the Wire” and “An IZA Christmas.” They are currently working on an album and movie.

Photo: NBCJo Dee Messina has been embarking on quite a few exciting things in the past five years. The multi-platinum selling artist got married, had two children, started writing a mom-blog featured on Disney's popular parenting site Babble, and managed to train for a couple marathons throughout all of this. She also ended her contract with her longtime record label, where she'd spent virtually all of her nearly two-decade career.

So what's next? Try something else completely new and unexpected, of course! Messina decided to eschew the traditional route of joining a new label in favor of an unorthodox approach: Make her next album with the help and input of fans, via online creative funding platform Kickstarter.

News recently broke that Kelly Rowland and Paulina Rubio have joined the Season 3 "X Factor" cast, but last year's robbed finalists Lyric145 are throwing a big Season 2 reunion party these days, and they're even paying tribute to a former judge.

Foo Fighters (Photo: Jordan Strauss)In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the Foo Fighters, Gaslight Anthem, Cary Brothers and Staind guitarist Mike Mushok have donated music to a new documentary, Beach 119, which premieres online Wednesday, June 5.

The film follows a community of survivors from the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens, New York and their struggle to bond together in the wake of the storm that stripped them of all their earthly possessions.