Music funding platform beatBread has just closed a $100 million institutional fund with asset manager Variant Investments to do so, MBW reports. Launched in November 2020, the company has made over 500 advances to artists and labels, ranging from $1,000 to as much as $2 million per artist for a limited share of revenues on catalog, and, if the artist chooses, on new unreleased music. These advances are repaid from a share of an artist’s streaming and airplay revenues, over a period of the artist’s choosing.

Metallica have announced their new album, titled '72 Seasons', which will come out on April 14th, and will be their first in seven years, Blabbermouth reports. Its first single, 'Lux Æterna' is a light trash song with a focus on melodic vocals. Band's frontman James Hetfield explained the album’s idea - “72 seasons. The first 18 years of our lives that form our true or false selves. The concept that we were told ‘who we are’ by our parents... Much of our adult experience is reenactment or reaction to these childhood experiences. Prisoners of childhood or breaking free of those bondages we carry”. Metallica have also unveiled dates for a massive 2023-2024 world tour that will see the band play two dates (with unique sets) in each city, and feature such opening bands as Pantera, Mammoth WVH, Five Finger Death Punch, Ice Nine Kills, and Architects.

Canadian-Chinese pop singer Kris Wu has been sentenced to 13 years in prison by a Beijing court for charges that include the rape of three women, The Associated Press reports. The Chaoyang District court ruled that Wu, as well as others implicated in the case, supplied three women with alcohol in 2020 and raped them when they could no longer consent. He also received one year and 10 months for a 2018 event where he “assembled a crowd” and assaulted two women they got drunk. Singer and actor was fined 600 million yuan (€79.5 million/$83.7 million) for evading taxes. Hu will be deported after completing his sentence,

"A brilliant, innovative early ‘70s singer-songwriter who was the first artist signed to David Geffen’s Asylum Records... Her music fit early ‘70s Southern California vibe of her label and milieu, but it was stranger, with deep classical influences, wildly unusual structures and voicings and often dark subject matter" - Variety presents Judee Still, the forgotten California musician. Andy Brown and Brian Lindstrom directed the new documentary ‘Lost Angel: The Genius of Judee Sill’ - "a masterful job of making the most of what little there was, enlivening the narrative with contemporary interviews, photos and voiceovers, as well as drawings and passages read by a voice actor culled from her voluminous journals".

When it comes to musical tastes, people tend to favor songs with lyrics that correspond to their attachment style - researchers in the psychology department of the University of Toronto have found in a study that involved asking 570 people about their favourite songs. The participants were asked a series of questions about their relationship histories. The analysis of more than 7,000 songs revealed that people tended to like song lyrics that related to their attachment style in intimate relationships. This means most people tend to like songs that spell out what they are going through in a relationship. Vice reports about the study.

Yolŋu rapper Baker Boy has dominated the 2022 Arias, taking home a total of five awards for his album 'Gela', including the top gong for album of the year, as well as best solo artist and best hip-hop release, ABC reports. Amyl and the Sniffers took home Best group, and Best rock release (for their 2021 album 'Comfort to Me'). Tones and I took home the fan-voted best song award for 'Cloudy Day'.

"One of the most dramatic impacts that streaming has had on the record industry is been the democratization of listening" - Music Business Worldwide underlined a phenomenon that has happened in pop music in the streaming decade. The outgoing CEO of Warner Music Group, Steve Cooper puts it clearly, in numbers: “A decade ago, our Top 5 artists generated over 15% of our recorded music physical and digital revenue. In 2022, they generated just over 5%”. It's not just a decline in share of revenue; it’s a decline in actual revenue generated - Warner Music Group’s Top 5 recorded music artists in FY2012 look likely to have cumulatively generated a larger sum of annual digital and physical royalties (≈$274.5m) than WMG’s equivalent Top 5 artists generated in FY2022 (≈$193.4m). WMG’s overall recorded music royalties more than doubled in that period - $1.83bn in FY2012 vs. $3.87bn in FY2022. "As a result, in any given year, an ever-greater share of total streams is drifting away from the Top 10 biggest hits, and towards a much wider array of ‘middle class’ artists with significant, but not necessarily chart-bursting, fanbases" - MBW points out.

A group of prominent musicans are among the signers of an open letter calling for the European Union to adopt a new law cracking down on deforestation, as part of its efforts to tackle the climate emergency. Coldplay, Brian Eno, Sting, Robyn, Barbra Streisand, Bryan Adams and David Gilmour, are among the musical signatures, next to veteran climate campaigners, as well as actors, directors and activists. ClientEarth

The best music books this year kept it personal" - Pitchfork points out introducing the best 15 books of 2022. Among them are "affable, conversational, and always funny, with surprising insights and ear-catching phrasings gliding in from every direction" book 'The Number Ones' by Tom Breihan about American No. 1 pop hits, as well as "an astoundingly intimate book-length conversation on art and grief" with Nick Cave by Sean O'Hagan. and 'Queer Country' by Shana Goldin-Perschbacher who draws "a vivid portrait of a movement at a point of breakthrough".

The global recording industry association IFPI, released 'Engaging with Music 2022', the largest music study on how people around the world enjoy and engage with music. It is based on the responses of more than 44,000 people in 22 countries. Highlights of the 2022 report include:

• Music fans are listening to more music today than ever before, spending on average 20.1 hours listening to music weekly - up from 18.4 hours in 2021.
• 46% of respondents use subscription audio streaming services, which offer uninterrupted and on-demand access to millions of licensed tracks.
• 69% of people say music is important to their mental health, 68% say that music is important when they exercise.

Universal Music Group-owned Deutsche Grammophon just launched its own high-resolution classical music streaming service called STAGE+. The subscription for the service will cost EUR €14.90 per month, or €149 per year. UMG thusly becomes the latest major record company to launch its own music streaming service, following the 2019 launch of Sony's high-resolution music streaming service Mora Qualitas in Japan. Also, classical music is rising in popularity amongst younger listeners, used to modern services

Ana Moura is one of Portugal’s biggest stars, a fado singer (or fadista) who has sold millions of records, and has just released her seventh album. This time Noura is reinventing the ‘Portuguese blues’ again, mixing its emotional intensity with kizomba, samba and trap. Guardian presents the fado star.

At least five people were killed and further 25 others were injured in a shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, just before midnight Saturday, Colorado Public Radio reports. The suspect in the shooting at Club Q was identified as 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich. Upon entering the club, the attacker immediately opened fire before at least two people inside the club confronted and fought him, preventing further violence.

China's Tencent Music has created and released over 1,000 tracks containing vocals created by AI tech that mimics the human voice, Music Business Worldwide reports. One of these tracks, which appears to be called 'Today' has already surpassed 100 million streams, becoming the first song by an AI singer to be streamed over 100 million times across the internet.

This week, Ticketmaster’s site crashed during the presale for Taylor Swift’s Era’s Tour, causing the cancellation of the general sale scheduled for Friday (November 18), the MBW reports. Ticketmaster claims that demand was so high for the tickets that, based on the volume of traffic to their site, Swift “would need to perform over 900 stadium shows (almost 20x the number of shows she is doing)”, or a stadium show “every single night for the next 2.5 years“. Over 2 million tickets were sold for Taylor Swift’s tour on November 15, “the most tickets ever sold for an artist in a single day”.

Music writer Piotr Orlov shares 10 episodes of his podcast Dada Strain Radio of music and interviews about rhythm, improvisation and community. Orlov points out that he wants to want to makes work "that creates musical *and* social connections, in historical *and* contemporary contexts". Also, he wants to "establish the underlying points that 1) free jazz is actually community dance music, 2) great DJ sets are actually improvised performances, and 3) the intentions of many of its most beloved practitioners transcend simple musical 'entertainment'". Episode 2 features the Irreversible Entanglements/Blacks’ Myths bassist Luke Stewart on the anti-capitalist and DIY aspects of punk and jazz cultures which have a lot in common.

“Friends, it’s hard to put the universe into language and into a short message, but she passed away last night, surrounded by family and love, including yours-” Low's Twitter reads after the passing of drummer Mimi Parker. She had been living with ovarian cancer since 2020, the Guardian reports. She was 55 years old. Parker met her future husband and bandmate Alan Sparhawk in grade school. Low were pioneers of a genre categorized as “slowcore".

American pop singer and actor Aaron Carter was found dead on Saturday (November 5) in his home in Lancaster, California, TMZ reports. Police arrived at the scene after a 911 call was made claiming that the musician had drowned in the bathtub. Carter claimed he had been diagnosed with multiple personality disorder, schizophrenia, and acute anxiety. Aaron Carter was the younger brother of Nick Carter, a member of boy band Backstreet Boys.

The US-born, Indian-raised, London-based jazz drummer, producer, composer and bandleader Sarathy Korwar has released his new ambient and groovy new single 'Remember To Look Out For The Signs'. The song from Korwar's album 'KALAK', coming out November 11th, 2022.

Atlanta rap star Takeoff, a member of the Migos, has been shot and killed in a Houston bowling alley called Billiards & Bowling around 2:30 AM Tuesday, TMZ reports. The shooting reportedly happened during a dice game, when a fight broke out and someone opened fire. Two people were hospitalized, and Takeoff was pronounced dead on the scene. Takeoff's uncle and fellow Migos member Quavo was present during the shooting but was not injured. Takeoff was 28. Pierre "Pee" Thomas, CEO of Migos' label Quality Control shared a plea for peace following the fatal shooting: "I want our community to remember that we don’t have to continue to result to violence every time there is a disagreement. It’s ok to love your brother and sister."

With her new album 'Midnights', Taylor Swift broke many records in sales, streams, plays - many formats and categories. So, 'Midnights' moved 1.578 million units, behind only Adele’s '25' for the biggest debut by a female artist in Billboard history. She also became the only artist to have five albums debut with over 1 million units sold in their first week in US Nielsen history. 'Midnights' sold 575,000 copies on vinyl — the largest week for an album on vinyl since tracking began in 1991. Taylor becomes the first artist to claim all top ten entries on the Hot 100 in a single week. 'Midnights' is Swift’s 11th No. 1 album overall, tying Barbra Streisand for most No. 1 albums made by women. Above the two ladies are The Beatles (19), and Jay-Z (14), with Drake and Bruce Springsteen also having 11 No. 1 albums. Insider lists all the records.

A nice list - Stereogum chooses 40 musicians who have done "something... in the past year that makes us feel like they’ve reached or are about to reach their full potential". It's not really a global list - the vast majority is American, and a few come from the UK or Australia - but still, it's quite colorful. The full list: Age Of Apocalypse, Anxious, Blackbraid, Caroline, Chat Pile, Dazy, Dijon, Doechii, DOMi & JD Beck, Dummy, Dust Star, Ethel Cain, Fugitive, Glorilla, High Vis, Jane Inc, Jane Remover, Jockstrap, King Hannah, Knifeplay, LF System, Lowertown, Maria BC, Mess Esque, MSPAINT, Naima Bock, Pool Kids, Rachika, Nayar, Rat Tally, Ripped To Shreds, Romero, RXK Nephew, Saucy Santana, Scowl, They Are Gutting A Body Of Water, Trapland Pat, Undeath, Why Bonnie, Zoh Amba, and ZORA.

Adidas has ended its partnership with Kanye West after his recent “unacceptable, hateful and dangerous” comments, Reuters reports. German sports company said it “does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech,” and therefore it would “terminate the partnership with Ye immediately, end production of Yeezy branded products, and stop all payments to Ye and his companies”. His products will be pulled from sale with immediate effect. Adidas estimated a short-term cost of this termination at €250 million. Adidas Yeezy partnership is said to be a billion-dollar-plus pillar of West’s net worth.

Mix Mag is worried about the disappearence of independent radio, following several closures: "Community radio broadcasters have the freedom to choose their own track listing and to punctuate their links with rewarding personal stories - without the confinement of a looming news bulletin. Fascinating guests without profiles are as welcome as guests that have them. With that, unplanned conversational twists have the space to be explored. The freedom of online radio’s programming is what makes it so culturally valuable. It’s a paramount tool in supporting the independent music economy and in sustaining the careers of alternative broadcasters".

28-year-old rapper Little Simz has won the 2022 Mercury prize for her fourth album 'Sometime I Might be Introvert' last night, NME reports. “The album that we have chosen deals with themes both personal and political; the music is as sophisticated as it is varied. This is a truly exceptional album,” said DJ Jamz Supernova. Little Simz congratulated her fellow nominees: “All of you guys are incredible, we all made incredible albums, we all change people’s lives with our music and that’s the most important thing, so this is for us really, you know what I’m saying?”. The award, given to the best British or Irish album of the year, comes with a cash prize of £25,000. Simz is a DIY artist, self-releasing each of her albums on her own label, Age 101.

Earlier this month, HYBE, the company behind some major K-pop acts, including BTS, acquired Supertone, a software company capable of creating “a hyper-realistic and expressive voice that [is not] distinguishable from real humans”. This week, BTS members announced they are about to go to the army to complete compulsory military service. Global News believes HYBE is preparing to fill the coming void with AI-made music. GN also lists other AI-powered music creation software such as AudioLM, Loudly, AVIA, DAACi, Beatoven...

The Guardian looks into the issue of more and more tours being canceled - Santigold canceled her holified tour, Animal Collective cancelled their UK and Europe tour, Sampa the Great is rescheduling her forthcoming European shows, the Avalanches cancelled their remaining North American tour dates, the UK rapper Stormzy nixed his upcoming Australia and New Zealand tour, Justin Bieber once again postponed his world tour. Also, a staggering number from Australia - between 1 July and 31 August last year, 32,737 Australian gigs were cancelled. The G gives several reasons - the skyrocketing cost of gas, flights, and hotels; a flooded market of delayed tours, leading to overbooked venues and audiences; and the risk of infection, alongside general exhaustion and poor mental health.

'Woman Life Freedom' is a song released by the Iranian-born Netherlands-based musician Sevdaliza which she wrote for "oppressed women around the world. I stand proud as an Iranian woman and I am supporting the fight of my sisters who shed their blood, hair, hearts and brains to give us all the hope, that one day, we will be free. At a young age I became aware of the systematic means of forcing women into obedience through violence and intimidation. To persuade women that their minds, bodies, and freedom do not belong to them. Our humanity demands we stand up against the oppression of women. Now. And forever. We must continue to speak up and fight institutions that condone oppression, violence and murder. We must face the people that deny the dignity and respect for all of us women. We are so tired of being told how to be, what to be".

Russian soldiers have shot dead Ukrainian conductor Yuriy Kerpatenko in his home in Kherson after he refused to take part in a concert in the occupied city, Classic FM reports. The concert on 1 October was intended to feature the Gileya chamber orchestra, of which Kerpatenko was the principal conductor. “The tragic irony of this is that talk about the superiority of Russian culture, its humanism. And here they murdered someone who is actually bringing beauty to people’s lives. It is sickening" - said the conductor Semyon Bychkov from Paris, where he was performing as music director of the Czech Philharmonic. The St Petersburg-born conductor left Russia as a young man in the 1970s. Kherson is a port city in Ukraine, and was the first to fall to Russian troops at the beginning of the war. Kerpatenko was one of the city’s residents who refused to leave. From February to May 2022, the conductor posted public messages on his Facebook profile, speaking out against the Russian invasion.

The members of BTS will start performing mandatory military service in South Korea, with Jin (29-y-o) initiating the process as soon as his schedule for his solo release is concluded at the end of October, the ET reports. Other members of the group plan to carry out their military service based on their own plans. The group will reconvene around 2025, after each members’ respective drafts are over. Under South Korean law, all able-bodied men are required to perform 18-21 months of military service. The band has already been granted a two-year extension on their government-mandated military service, with top-performing athletes and musicians occasionally granted exemptions.