Korean boy-band BTS has added a Saudi Arabia date to their world tour schedule - they will play at King Fahd International Stadium in the capital city of Riyadh on Oct. 11. BTS are poised to become the first foreign act to play a headline stadium show in the kingdom, but not all fans are happy, […]

The second day of the Scottish TRNSMT festival was dubbed by many as "Snuts day" after the local band attracted the biggest crowd on the festival's second stage last year and made the progression to the main stage this year - BBC says of the biggest Scottish fest, held last weekend, and it's influence. Similar […]

Loudwire has an educational article about 10 less known subgenres of metal. Post-metal established a name for itself with bands like Neurosis or Isis, but then there is porno grind - a type of metal that features ridiculously sexual band names and song titles such as Gut’s 'Let Me Be Your Sperm Factory' from 'The Cumback' (and […]

Canadian festival Roxodus - a four-day event that was to be held at the Edenvale Airport in Clearview Township, ON, and feature the likes of Aerosmith, Kid Rock and Nickelback - was canceled due to weak ticket sales. Then the police came in - with organizers now warring over the loss of millions of dollars. […]

Nothing in pop-culture is outrageous and everything makes sense, right?, so a David Bowie inspired Barbie doll is just fine. Toymakers Mattel have announced a new collectable doll inspired by his signature Ziggy Stardust fashion. Dubbed Barbie as Bowie, the doll is dressed as the late singer's glam-rock alter ego, complete with a pair of […]

Nas' dad Olu Dara is a jazz cornetist, he also played on several Nas' songs, so jazz is a thing in his music. His song 'Jarreau Of Rap (Skatt Attack)' reflects this jazz background - it's a collaboration with the late, great jazz singer Al Jarreau, who died in 2017, and a jazz trumpeter Keyon […]

R. Kelly has been arrested in Chicago on sex trafficking charges, and is being held in custody. There are said to be 13 charges against the singer, including child abuse images and obstruction of justice. He's already pleaded not guilty to more than 20 sexual offences. R. Kelly began paying thousands of dollars in 2001 […]

The latest work from experimental electronic composer Keith Fullerton Whitman 'STS' is 15 years in the making, with the eight-channel installation work being made up of recordings made on differing Serge Modular systems, Fact Magazine reports. The sound experiment is the result of the “mapping of the frequency spectra of time-aligned formants to a catalog […]

Taylor Swift is the world’s highest-paid celebrity - according to Forbes, this year she had a pretax income of $185 million. It mostly comes from her Reputation Stadium Tour, that made $345 million overall. Other musicians in the upper echelons of the Celebrity 100 rankings are Kanye West (#3), Ed Sheeran (#5), and the Eagles […]

It's an illustrated children's book, covering band's history, "from, duh, A to Z!", as Metallica says. Well, maybe not exactly to "Z", maybe to "M" - it goes from "Garage Days", their early demo, "to Master of Puppets", their seminal album from 1996. If so, then there's a wrong guy on the cover, since in that […]

The secret to thwarting facial recognition has been unintentionally unlocked by Juggalos, Insane Clown Posse's biggest fans. Juggalos face makeup cannot be accurately read by many facial recognition technologies - the black bands frequently used in Juggalo makeup obscure the mouth and cover the chin, totally redefining a person’s key features, which makes facial recognition […]

Billionaire rapper Jay-Z joined California company Caliva as a "chief brand strategist" in which he will focus on outreach and the creative direction of the company. “We want to create something amazing, have fun in the process, do good and bring people along the way,” the rapper said in a statement, CNN reports.

Atlanta country band Confederate Railroad were supposed to perform at the Du Quoin State Fair in Illinois, as part of “90s Country ReLoaded Day,” but after people started to question their name they were removed from the lineup, Brooklyn Vegan reports. Du Quoin State Fair manager Josh Gross said - "While every artist has a right to […]

Two members of Iranian metal band Confess have been sentenced to 14 1/2 years in prison and 74 lashes for the crime of playing metal, by the Revolutionary Tribunal of Tehran. While waiting for the Tribunal's decision frontman Nikan Khosravi and Arash Ilkhani fled to Turkey, and were eventually granted asylum in Norway, where the […]

Slayer announced their very last tour, that goes down across US this autumn, with a very good choice of support bands - Primus, Ministry, and Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals, groups that don't sound similar to one another or to the headliner. “The last leg of its farewell world tour" ends in Los Angeles, […]

Beyonce curated and produced a new album, 'The Lion King: The Gift', which is "steeped in the sounds of Africa", and it includes new Beyonce song 'Spirit' (watch the lyric video below). The album and the film's soundtrack will feature a number of global recording artists, but it isn't just "a collection of songs" inspired by the film […]

Menzi Mngoma is a 27 year old musicology graduate, who was full time Uber driver and loved singing opera tunes to his passengers, when a Kim Davey, who was on a business trip from Johannesburg filmed him and posted a clip on Facebook (here). The video of Mngoma singing Verdi's 'La donna è mobile' in […]

Rapper Nicki Minaj has cancelled a scheduled performance in Saudi Arabia next week - "after careful reflection I have decided to no longer move forward with my scheduled concert at Jeddah World Fest" the singer said in a statement. She added: "While I want nothing more than to bring my show to fans in Saudi […]

Including: most left-brained new MC TisaKorean with his 'Double Dare', a gay anthem for summer 2019 'On A Roll' by Ashley O (Miley Cyrus, for un-Black Mirror fans), joyous sound of someone finally coming into his own in 'Let You Know by Flume, trademark agitated beauty by Hiss Golden Messenger in 'I Need A Teacher', unexpectedly […]

Feminist music collective NÓTT based in Medellín, Colombia, has announced its first label compilation 'Austral', and it features contributions from “Latin American women producers, who are opening a gap in the exploration and sound composition of electronic music”, Fact Magazine reports. Compi includes NÓTT founders Marea, Julianna and Andrea Arias, as well as Valesuchi, Sol Ortega, […]

Outkast's Andre 3000 and Lizzo made the flute a star of the year. "They might be one of the world’s oldest-known pieces of kit for bashing out a tune on but their time is now", Guardian says in their humorous article about flute in pop music. They aren't the first - Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson […]

Marilyn Manson has a role in CBS' forthcoming miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s 'The Stand', as Manson tells Revolver. Apart from that, Shooter Jennings and Manson did a cover of ‘The End’ by the Doors for 'The Stand'. The series, based on King's novel, takes place in a world ravaged by an unstoppable plague, where […]

Common Notions in October is to publish a new book 'An Encyclopedia of Political Record Labels', written by Josh MacPhee, and which traces the parallel rise of social movements in the second half of the twentieth century and the vinyl record as the dominant form of music distribution. PopMatters brings excerpts from the book.

Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready hosted the first-ever Peak to Sky Music Festival in Big Sky, Montana this last weekend, and two-day fest led up to all-star super jam consisting of McCready, Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ drummer Chad Smith and guitarist Josh Klinghoffer, and Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, […]

Detroit music festival AfroFuture Fest came under scrutiny for charging ticket prices lower for people of color vs. the rest. Early bird tickets for POC retailed at $10 while non-POC were charged $20. AfroFuture Fest organizers argued that the prices are actually the same, given the fact that the white people earn more, meaning 20 […]

Berliner Ollie Holmberg has created an AI that generated DJ and record names from Berlin's Hard Wax Record Shop, Electronic Beats reports. So, this is his explanation why he did it: “The end of the Anthropocene (near-term human extinction) our civilisation and the biosphere aren’t going to collapse evenly in space or at a single […]

Florence + The Machine singer said she feels comfortable when she's making music but the idea of being a prominent figure in the public eye is "corrosive" and "very bad" for her. She said: "I have this happy delusion that I am not famous. To protect my sanity, I decided a while ago that I am not […]

London gallery for contemporary art on July 12 is opening Sweet Harmony: Rave Today, a retrospective exhibition that “will recapture the new world that emerged from the acid house scene and narrates the ascendancy of rave culture with the youth of today”. Saatchi rave exhibition will feature multimedia installations, audiovisual works and photo galleries, including […]

Keith Urban, Niall Horan, Bette Midler, Def Leppard, Gene Simmons, Indigo Girls are celebrating the United States women’s soccer team winning its fourth FIFA Women's World Cup title. "My heart is exploding with pride at the women’s #WorldCup news. it used to be that men’s baseball and history exploded upwards together. now...watch" - Amanda Palmer […]

Influential Brazilian singer and composer João Gilberto was known best as a pioneer of the bossa nova genre, which found international popularity in the 1960s, Huffington Post reports. Gilberto's style - mixing traditional samba music with modern jazz influences - inspired bossa nova, or new trend, with many other artists after him. His versions of […]