Music news: Pearl Jam, Chris Cornell and Spinal Tap

Pearl Jam's Mike McCready has never battled being creative. He's been a member of Pearl Jam since 1991, but he has been part of a bunch of side projects and has collaborated with musical artists of almost any genre. He even played on Ozzy Osbourne's 2022 album, Patient Number 9.

But McCready also recently told Guitar World that he is in the middle of working on a rock opera about the Seattle music scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The rock opera is partly inspired on the late Chris Cornell who was not only a former bandmate of McCready's when the two were in Temple of the Dog, but Cornell and McCready were also good friends. McCready recently performed an acoustic song called "Crying Moon" in concert and that song will be a part of the rock opera and is about Chris Cornell.

Mike McCready also told Guitar World that the new Pearl Jam record is almost done as well. The album was produced by Andrew Watt. Watt has worked with a bunch of op stars, such as Justin Bieber and Dua Lipa, but has also worked with Eddie Vedder and Ozzy Osbourne. McCready said that Watt really pushed the band to see new ways of recording and to bring a high level of energy toward the recording.

Mike McCready talks Pearl Jam and his new rock opera while Derek Smalls crushes Barbie

McCready said the new album by Pearl Jam won't likely be released this year, however. The record has no name yet, but should be available to fans in 2024.

In other, more tongue-firmly-in-cheek news, Derek Smalls, bassist in Spinal Tap, has released his first new song in five years. The track is called "Must Crush Barbie." In a press release, Smalls says the song is an "excoriating attack on the pink sensation" and a "much-needed antidote to the ubiquitous pinkness that has spilled out of movie theaters this summer and onto the high streets with wall-to-wall media coverage."

Of course, if you know nothing about Spinal Tap or Derek Smalls (who is character created by actor Harry Shearer) then you should know the basis of the two is extreme sarcasm. Seriously, after reading this article, watch This is Spinal Tap. You will not be disappointed.

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