Parisian duo Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, who gave us some of the most popular dance and pop songs ever made, have split, Pitchfork reports. Daft Punk broke the news with an 8-minute video titled 'Epilogue', excerpted from their 2006 film 'Electroma'.
Name3Songs podcast discusses the problem of sexual misconduct in alter music. Questions they pose: "Why sexual misconduct reoccurs at alarming rates in the music industry. What is the psychology behind this? How has this behavior been perpetrated across decades? How can this behavior be stopped and prevented? What is accountability and how do we apply it effectively?".
“Borders are a dreadful invention of mankind, and so we are just putting up another one, and I think it’s a dreadful retrograde step” - Queen's drummer Roger Taylor said about consequences Brexit will have on UK touring bands, NME reports. His band is OK, he said - "we can fall back on our songwriting and our publishing", it's the road crew that are suffering - "it’s a daily, weekly job for them and so it’s made it really hard for our industry, very hard indeed”. Guardian reports about road crews for some of the biggest bands in music that are being forced into homelessness and turning to food banks to survive during the pandemic.
Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson of the Roots will direct a documentary about Sly & The Family Stone, with Common executive producing it, Deadline reports. “It goes beyond saying that Sly’s creative legacy is in my DNA….it’s a black musician’s blueprint" Questlove said, with producers MRC Entertainment adding the film "follows the story of the influential artist, king of funk, and fashion icon". Questlove's directorial debut, the music documentary 'Summer of Soul', recently won two awards at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.
Morgan Wallen stays on top of the Billboard 200 chart for the sixth week in a row, amidst his racial slur scandal which got him canceled from the radio, Billboard reports. 'Dangerous: The Double Album' sold 93,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Feb. 18, down 38% from the previous week. Wallen captures the most weeks atop the list for a male artist’s album since Drake’s 'Views' in 2016, and the most for a male country artist since Garth Brooks' 'TheHits' in 1995.
Five nights of protests in Barcelona have followed after the arrest of rapper Pablo Hasél, convicted of criticizing the country's monarchy and glorifying a separatist group in a series of tweets, Reuters reports. Thousands took to the streets Saturday night, protesting Hasél's conviction and nine-month sentence. Protests turned violent on Saturday with protesters throwing objects at police, setting fires and looting and vandalizing many luxury shops.
Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda becomes the first major label artist to launch a single via NFT - non-fungible token auction, according to Loudwire. 'Happy Endings' is a collaboration featuring rising vocalist Upsahl and alt-pop star Iann Dior, and he is using the cryptocurrency as a new avenue to promote his music. Shinoda gave his fans the opportunity to bid for a chance to win an original print of the single artwork signed by him and contemporary artist Cain Caser at a cryptocurrency auction.
Discogs has seen a big growth in sales last year, their year-end report shows: the marketplace is up 35.78% to 8,845,534 orders over the prior year and in total 16,290,197 pieces of physical music were sold around the world, bringing an overall 40.12% increase year-over-year. The most popular physical music format sold in 2020 was vinyl - 11,961,998 records were sold, up 40.75% from 2019. CDs have also increased 37.18% year-over-year with 3,441,769 compact discs purchased. Interest in cassettes hasn’t died down, with a total of 282,798 sold through the Marketplace, a 33.33% increase over 2019.
Kim Kardashian has filed for divorce from rapper Kanye West, according to CBS. The couple have been married for almost seven years and have four children together. Reports suggest Kardashian has requested joint legal and physical custody of their children.
Experimental Indonesian metal Senyawa are releasing their new album ‘Alkisah’ on 44 different independent labels around the world (release dates vary from Feb 19 to Feb 21). Labels span from the experimental duo’s hometown of Yogyakarta, Indonesia, to the United States, United Kingdom, EU and other Asian countries, the New York Times reports. Senyawa confirmed the album release will vary by label, each with their own “different design and packaging, with multiple remix/reinterpretations by various artists”. Senyawa said that the concept of releasing through multiple labels would decentralise the “former hierarchical system of music distribution” and would allow shipping distances and cost to be reduced, and empower “smaller scattered powers to grow and connect”.
