A ROCKIN’ NEW YEAR

2022

STARTS OFF WITH a bang as a crowd of seminal rockers gun for the top of the Billboard charts. Pearl Jam front man Eddie Vedder drops Earthling (Feb. 11), his first solo album in more than a decade, which is chock full of epic ’80s-inspired power ballads featuring haunting organs and fierce guitar solos; Original Guns N’ Roses members – that’d be Slash, Axl Rose and Duff McKagan, if you need a reminder – join the new G&R lineup for the four-track EP Hard Skool (Feb 25); and British pop-rock group Tears for Fears shouts its triumphant return on the emotionally charged and introspective album The Tipping Point (Feb. 25), its first in 17 years. Last, but never least, Canadian rocker, Zoomer cover subject and frequent photography contributor, Bryan Adams, who was scheduled to start touring Europe in January for So Happy It Hurts, finally drops the 12-song album on March 11. The video for its titular single, about “freedom, autonomy, spontaneity and the thrill of the open road,” as Adams has said, features him behind the wheel of a vintage convertible, singing about “driving down Trans-Canada One.” The bop-inducing tempo is exactly what we need to stay upbeat until spring.