Happy Friday! Alternative New Music Friday #Happens with Cage The Elephant. The Kentucky 6-piece released their 6th album today and will play at Hangout Festival and Bonnaroo before kicking off their big tour.

Hangout Festival begins today. For those heading to Gulf Shores, Alabama, the weekend set times are HERE.

More Alternative ratings love to share from the latest Nielsen April 2024 PPM 6+ Ratings. KXTE (X107.5)/Las Vegas is up 3.0-3.5, WOLT (Indy 103.3)/Indianapolis jumps 4.0-4.4, WROX (96X)/Norfolk leaps 2.6-3.3, WOKV-HD2 (X99.5)/Jacksonville rises 1.2-1.4, and WMRQ (Radio 104.1)/Hartford climbs 2.7-2.8.

WWDC (DC101)/Washington PD Dustin Matthews checks in to report, “DC101 is top 5 in Persons 18-49 and 25-54 and #1 in Men for the month of April.  Elliot continues to dominate #1 in all key demos!”

A couple days ago, Letdown. was at KRXP (X1039)/Colorado Springs. Check out the radio & records exposure on Alternative Photos. 

New Music out today from Billie Eilish. Some other big releases are coming before the end of the month. Check out the Alternative Radio ship dates HERE. There are a few others that can’t be announced yet that will be added soon.

New Music Friday #Happens With Cage The Elephant

Cage The Elephant released their sixth full-length album, Neon Pill, today via RCA Records. The 12 song collection includes the lead single “Neon Pill,” the band’s 11th #1 single on Alternative Chart. In advance of the new release, Cage The Elephant shared “Metaverse,” “Good Time,” “Out Loud,” and debuted “Rainbow” on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on May 9th. Watch the performance HERE. 

Neon Pill finds the Kentucky-bred six piece—brothers Matthew Shultz [vocals] and Brad Shultz [guitar], Daniel Tichenor [bass], Jared Champion [drums], Nick Bockrath [lead guitar], and Matthan Minster [guitar, keys, backing vocals]— forging new musical ground. The album, produced by John Hill, materialized during sessions at Sonic Ranch in El Paso, Electric Lady in New York, Sound Emporium in Nashville, Echo Mountain in North Carolina, and at Hill’s own studio in Los Angeles that included tragedy and turbulence. Nine months  into the pandemic, Matthew and Brad lost their father. The band weathered the back-to-back deaths of friends, while Matthew experienced depression and a mental breakdown, culminating in hospitalization. Coming out on the other side, he learned quite a bit about himself, and gained a whole lot of strength and wisdom. Neon Pill came to life in the eye of the storm.

“To me, Neon Pill is the first record where we were consistently uninfluenced, and I mean that in a positive way,” observes Matthew. “Everything is undoubtedly expressed through having settled into finding our own voice. We’ve always drawn inspiration from artists we love, and at times we’ve even emulated some of them to a certain degree. With this album, having gone through so much, life had almost forced us into becoming more and more comfortable with ourselves. We weren’t reaching for much outside of the pure experience of self expression, and simultaneously not necessarily settling either. We just found a uniqueness in simply existing.” 

Since forming in Bowling Green, KY in 2006, Cage The Elephant have released the following fix albums: Cage The Elephant (2008), Thank You, Happy Birthday (2011), Melophobia (2013), Tell Me I’m Pretty (2015), Social Cues (2019) and Neon Pill (2024).

Cage The Elephant is playing Hangout Festival tomorrow (5/18) and Bonnaroo on June 15th before beginning a 45-date North American US tour, produced by Live Nation, on June 20th in Salt Lake City with support from Young The Giant & Bakar. Find the tour dates HERE. 

MORE NEW MUSIC FRIDAY ALBUMS OUT TODAY

The Avett Brothers – The Avett Brothers (Ramseur/American/Thirty Tigers)

Beth Gibbons – Lives Outgrown (Domino)

Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard And Soft (Darkroom/Interscope)

Everyone’s Getting Involved: A Tribute To Talking Heads…(A24 Music)

J Duran – Introspect (GOLDN RETRIEVER)

Joywave – Permanent Pleasure (Cultco/Hollywood)

MORE ALT ALBUMS HERE

GOING FOR ADDS

Impacting Songs Next Week (5/21):

Billie Eilish “Lunch” (Interscope)

Dayglow “Every Little Thing I Say I Do” (Mercury/Republic)