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FRIENDS
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 Kenny Chesney has landed his seventh number one album on the Billboard 200 with the release of Life On A Rock. The album sold 153,000 copies.
Among country acts with the most No. 1s on the Billboard 200, Chesney is second to only Garth Brooks. The latter notched eight leaders between 1991 and 2001.
Since 2004, all 10 of Chesney’s regular full-length albums have debuted in the top four on the Billboard 200. His latest follows 2012′s “Welcome to the Fishbowl,” which debuted and peaked at No. 2 off a 193,000 start. The new album’s debut week is his smallest sales bow for a studio set since 1999′s “Everywhere We Go” began with 30,000.
Chesney’s new album is one of only two debuts in the top 10 this week, as fellow country act Randy Rogers Band’s “Trouble” also enters at No. 9, with 26,000. It follows the group’s last album, 2010′s “Burning the Day,” which debuted and peaked at No. 8 with 29,000 in its first week.
Over on the Country Albums chart, Chesney and Rogers Band arrive at Nos. 1 and 3, respectively. It’s Chesney’s 12th No. 1 set on that tally.
Billboard reports that Kenny Chesney’s new album Life on a Rock is expected to debut at number one on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart:
On next week’s Billboard 200 chart, watch for country superstar Kenny Chesney to claim his seventh No. 1 as his new Life On a Rock should debut atop the list. Industry sources suggest the set could move around 140,000 or so by the end of the tracking week on Sunday, May 5.
It follows Welcome to the Fishbowl, released in June 2012, which debuted and peaked at No. 2 with 193,000 according to Nielsen SoundScan. Chesney has been on an incredible chart roll for nearly 10 years. Since 2004, all nine of his regular full-length albums have debuted in the top four on the Billboard 200.
The new Billboard 200 chart’s top 10 will be revealed on the morning of Wednesday, May 8.
The day has finally arrived. Kenny Chesney’s new album Life on a Rock is in stores today!
If you haven’t already, download the album now at iTunes or AmazonMP3. You can also order the CD at Amazon.
Be sure to catch Kenny on Good Morning America this morning and then Late Night with Jimmy Fallon tonight.
“I’ll look back on [Life on a Rock] as one of my favorite records for a lot of reasons, but one of the main reasons is the way the record was made,” Chesney tells Billboard. “I wrote a lot of these songs without music. I just wrote the lyrics down and tried to take moments from my life and my friends lives, and some of their stories, and the crazy characters I’ve met, and tried to give them a pulse, tried to paint a picture, and honestly tell a story that I haven’t been able to tell up to know because of the nature of our business and the way we make music. And not only did I write without music initially, I wrote them without expectations, without a timeline. I wrote them without editing myself.”
Billboard has a great track-by-track interview with Kenny Chesney where he provides the inspiration for each song. Be sure to read it.
Drop your thoughts on the new album in the comments section below.
We’re exactly one week away from the release of Kenny Chesney’s new album “Life on a Rock.”
For a limited time you can listen to the entire album for free!
Head over to iTunes now to listen on iPad or your computer (does not work on mobile).
While you’re there, pre-order the album for only $11.99.
Clear Channel Media and Entertainment and Blue Chair Records/Columbia Nashville announced today an integrated promotional and marketing partnership to preview Kenny Chesney’s new Life On A Rock album, set to release April 30. Clear Channel will host an exclusive iHeartRadio Album Release Party – featuring a never-been-done-before one hour live conversation and listening session with Chesney in the iHeartRadio Theater in New York City on April 29 at 1 p.m. EST.
The conversation and album preview is part of Clear Channel’s multi-platform campaign, which will include an on-air and online Artist Integration Program, designed to introduce what the critics have called “Chesney’s most personal music” to fans and listeners nationwide.
To harness the excitement around Life on a Rock, Clear Channel will host this exclusive iHeartRadio Album Release Party at the iHeartRadio Theater presented by P.C. Richard & Son in New York City on Monday, April 29 at 1 p.m. EST. Bobby Bones, host of The Bobby Bones Show, Syndicated on Country radio stations nationwide, will join Chesney for one unbelievable hour of songs, fun, tales from the road and stories of where the music came from. Featuring a live, on-stage interview, Chesney will bring the fans inside a project he says, “I never knew I was making, and songs I wrote just for me…”
The event will broadcast live across more than 100 Clear Channel Country radio stations as well as station websites and iHeartRadio.com, Clear Channel’s industry-leading digital music service. The Album Release Party and its live stream will be promoted on-air extensively across Clear Channel Country radio stations’ nationwide and across its digital platforms, including iHeartRadio beginning Thursday, April 25.
“I’m happy the folks at Clear Channel are giving me an opportunity to talk to the fans about this really personal record,” Chesney said. “When you take a risk and do something outside the box, make an album that pulls back some layers and expectations, you want the fans to share in where the music came from, just as much as you want people to see their lives in your song… This lets me bring them the man I am when I’m not onstage.”
 Kenny Chesney will perform at New York City’s Highline Ballroom for an exclusive, invitation-only concert for SiriusXM listeners on Wednesday, May 1.
The “Early Kick Off to Summer” concert, which will be broadcast on Saturday, May 4 at 8:00 pm ET on The Highway, channel 59, will feature the only artist to sell in excess of a million tickets on each of his last ten tours, performing several of his 24 number one hits, as well as songs from the largely self-penned Life On A Rock, which also features guest appearances from Willie Nelson and the Wailers Band and is scheduled to be released on April 30.
“To be able to strip it down and create the same kind of vibe that reflects this new record makes me really fired up,” says Chesney. “It’s tricky when you do the kinds of shows we do to take it into a venue small enough for this music to be heard properly… and I love the idea that not just the few hundred who get in, but everyone listening to SiriusXM’s The Highway will be able to be part of this very special night of songs and stories.”
Subscribers will have the opportunity to win tickets to the event through an online sweepstakes across SiriusXM’s diverse music, talk and sports channels open to listeners who have been an active subscriber continuously since March 18 and meet certain other conditions of eligibility. See Official Rules at www.siriusxm.com/thehighway starting April 3.
SiriusXM listeners can also enter for the chance to win a trip to New York City for the event by following @SXMTheHighway on Twitter and watching for the opportunity to enter to win. See Official Rules for additional details about this opportunity at www.siriusxm.com/thehighway beginning April 16.
SiriusXM subscribers, who have been an active subscriber continuously since March 18, can also enter for the chance to win one of five pairs of tickets for the event by listening to The Highway, channel 59, on Wednesday April 3, at 4:00 pm ET.
 We’re less than a month away from the release of Kenny Chesney’s new album Life on a Rock, and on Tuesday night he hosted a preview party in Nashville:
Kenny Chesney threw a party for his upcoming album, Life on a Rock, on Tuesday (April 2) in Nashville, but it wasn’t the sort of sunny shindig you’d expect from the superstar.
Rather than playing the kind of anthems you’d hear at his stadium shows, Chesney has populated the new album with what he called “incredibly personal, incredibly autobiographical” songs. About 50 people were treated to a preview project during a private show at a small Nashville music venue, the High Watt. Life on a Rock will be released April 30.
Dressed casually in a gray shirt and khaki pants, Chesney sat alone onstage and spoke extensively about nine of the 10 songs on the album. (He skipped past the first track, “Pirate Flag,” since it’s already a hit at country radio.) Then he reached over to a nearby laptop and shared the new material for the first time.
Not unlike much of his catalog, Life on a Rock is very nostalgic. In particular, Chesney said he considers the songs “When I See This Bar” and “Happy on the Hey Now (A Song for Kristi)” as the lynchpins that inspired the project. For both songs, he draws on friendships for inspiration, with the latter being a tribute to a friend who died too young. He also noted he wrote the oldest song on the album, “Lindy,” in 2006. It’s about a man he often encountered on the islands, although they rarely said anything beyond basic hellos.
Most of the album is midtempo, although Chesney is not afraid to add a lighthearted feel to the mix. He told the crowd he wrote the lyrics to the thoughtful “Spread the Love” at the request of the Wailers, and their Jamaican groove in the arrangement is unmistakable. Later in the album, a duet with Willie Nelson titled “Coconut Tree” is a hoot, especially because the duo is “high on the coconut tree,” and presumably they’re not just talking about elevation.
Be sure to read the full story here. There are a lot of good details about each track on the album.
Kenny Chesney’s new album Life On A Rock is now available for pre-order at iTunes!
With the pre-order going live, they’re also releasing another single from the album: “Lindy”. Get it and listen to it now!
Here’s the full track list for Life On A Rock:
- Pirate Flag
- When I See This Bar
- Spread the Love (featuring the Wailers with Elan)
- Lindy
- Coconut Tree (with Willie Nelson)
- It’s That Time of Day
- Life On a Rock
- Marley
- Must Be Something I Missed
- Happy On the Hey Now (A Song For Kristi)
Life On A Rock will be released April 30th. If you prefer the hard copy, head on over to Amazon to pre-order.
Earlier today Kenny Chesney unveiled the cover for his upcoming album: Life On A Rock.
Hey, Guys…
By now you know, we’re coming…
for another summer, another round of remembering what music means, being together and making memories…
Me & the guys are so ready!
I love that you’re loving “Pirate Flag” as much as I did when I heard it. Pretty much says it all about a whole lot of life, right?
Life. You’ve shared so much of yours with me and my music, and I can’t wait to get the next record out to you. It’s snapshots of places I’ve been, people I’ve loved and moments I wish I could bottle up. Kind of like the album cover… literally, pictures from my life.
It’s called Life On A Rock. It looks at where I’ve been, what I’ve learned and hopefully how we grow. I can’t share the music for a bit, but here’s the cover. It’s a lot like this record actually sounds!
Until we find you on the road, or in your car, or on the beach
Be As You Are,
Kenny
You can pre-order the album now at Amazon.com. It will be release on April 30th.
 Just in time for the debut of the first song from the album, Kenny Chesney has released the name of the record: ‘Life On A Rock’.
With “Pirate Flag” beaming out at the stroke of midnight, Kenny Chesney figured the time was right to release the title of his much anticipated April 30 Blue Chair/Columbia release. ‘Life On A Rock,’ co-produced with longtime collaborator Buddy Cannon, captures the thematic core of the 10 song set that’s been recorded and mixed in Los Angeles, Hawaii, Jamaica, Key West, London and Nashville, Tennessee.
“It all depends on what kind of rock you’re looking at,” Chesney says of the title. “Just living here on this planet, we’re all living life on a rock; but for me, and for this record, it’s about the way life is when you live on an island. Everywhere you go, there’s everyone you know; you know everything about them, and they know everything about you… and well, that’s just a whole other way to be.
“And coming from Luttrell, Tennessee, I can tell you, ‘life on a rock’ isn’t all that different from life in a real small town. It’s slower, it’s easier, it’s more invested and it’s also more about really enjoying the moments as they are, when they are.”
While the driving “Pirate Flag,” an anthem of rebelling against the day-in, day-out, has already been singled out by USA Today as their Song of the Week atop their Grammy-based Listen Up! column, Life On A Rock is a varied platter of music, ranging from introspective ballads to staccato shuffles, a duet with Willie Nelson and a bit of reggae. It also celebrates a way of life most people live without ever realizing.
“At the end of the day, what defines life for most people, certainly for me, are the people you share it with,” Chesney explains. “When you live in close proximity, you share the highs and lows of every day life and become close in ways you can’t even explain. Years go by… People move on… But that time, those friends remain with you no matter where you go. That’s where the treasures of being alive are found.
“When I first went to the islands, I met a lot of people who were making a life beyond anything any of them knew… They were boatmen, bartenders, waitresses, real estate folks. They were all loving life, living a dream and coloring outside the lines with this real sense of freedom; they took a country singer from East Tennessee into their tribe at a time when having friends outside everything I knew was important. Time passes, life moves on, but those friends lasted, and this album in a lot of ways is about the power of that kind of friendship to endure.”
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