Taylor Swift has announced that she has re-recorded her second and most successful album 'Fearless', as part of a long-term plan to control her old songs outright, the New York Times reports. Her plan is to re-record, note-by-note, her entire Big Machine discography of six albums and to release it by herself. Swift is setting up and promoting 'Fearless (Taylor Version)' which comes out in April, as a new album, with six previously unreleased songs. She released the "Taylor" version of 'Love Story' as Valentine's gift for her fans.

Retro-futuristic design, sound quality, and package design attract a new generation of music-lovers in Japan to cassette tapes, Vice reports about the interesting trend. Young people in their 20s and 30s are seeking music and culture from the 70s and 80s, paying over 158,700 Japanese yen ($1,517) for packs of 10, or 1,100 yen ($10.50) to 1,980 yen ($19) for a cassette. Maxell is the only remaining cassette tape maker in Japan, selling an annual average of 8 million cassettes nationally,

The US music industry revenue grew to $113 billion in 2018 and generated an additional 50 cents of revenue on every dollar earned for adjacent industries such as tourism, hospitality and marketing, which means it contributed a total of $170 billion to the economy, Billboard reports. Of the total sum, employee earnings were over $88 billion.

The keyboardist, composer, and bandleader Chick Corea - a contemporary jazz innovator - died on Feb. 9 at age 79 from a rare form of cancer, NPR reports. Corea, a virtuosic keyboardist who broadened the scope of jazz during a career spanning more than five decades, early in his career joined Miles Davis’ band and played a key role in helping the trumpeter make the transition to a more contemporary, plugged-in sound. Later, he formed his own groundbreaking electric band, Return to Forever, which played some of the most vibrant and dynamic music of the fusion era. An interesting quote by the late musician in the LA Times: “You can’t create in a vacuum and just fail to relate to people. At the same time, you cannot compromise your integrity. There has to be a middle road, where some sensible balance is made between, on the one hand, pure creation, and, on the other hand, the reality is that we live with, eating and survival and money and business.

LA judge has ordered Britney Spears' father and conservator Jamie Spears to share his control of her investment with financial company Bessemer Trust, which has now been appointed as a co-conservator, NBC reports. Britney Spears' legal team has asked the court to give a third party equal power to her father in managing the 39-year-old pop star's finances. After the court's ruling, Mr. Spears and Bessemer will work together on a budget and investment plan for the singer.

Spanish rapper Pablo Hasél has been ordered to report to prison to serve nine months and one day, for glorifying terrorism and insulting the Crown and state institutions in a series of tweets. After over 200 artists – including the filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar – signed a petition defending the rapper, the Spanish government announced that it is planning a reform to the criminal code that would eliminate prison terms for crimes involving freedom of expression, el Pais reports.

Jimi Hendrix’s guitar, Whitney Houston’s outfits, Ella Fitzgerald’s coat, vintage photos, and 1,500 other items are on view at the new National Museum of African American Music, which opened on Martin Luther King Jr Day in Nashville. It covers 400 years of black music, from gospel to jazz and R&B, presenting some of the most famous musicians like Elvis Presley, Jay-Z, and The Fugees, to some lesser-known like Ma Rainey and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Guardian visited it.

A very interesting article in Vice about tactics of police officers in Beverly Hills who have been playing music while being filmed, seemingly in an effort to trigger Instagram’s copyright filters and get those videos removed. Instagram in particular has been increasingly strict on posting copyrighted material. Any video that contains music, even if it’s playing in the background, is potentially subject to removal by Instagram.

Yves Jarvis drops the only freest song today - 'Projection'; Tyler, The Creator & A$AP Rocky share a funky banger 'Jingelin'; Cassandra Jenkins' 'Crosshairs' is as light and easy as the snow where the video was shot; Jay-Z shares his Nipsey Hussle collab 'What It Feels Like' from the 'Judas & the Black Messiah' soundtrack; Cult of Luna share a doom-sludge EP with 'I Remember' as the stand-out track from it; UK grime masters Digga D x AJ Tracey share ‘Bringing It Back’.

Rage Against the Machine, Jay-Z, Foo Fighters, Kate Bush, Chaka Khan, DEVO, Iron Maiden, The Go-Go’s, Carole King, New York Dolls, Tina Turner, Dionne Warwick, Fela Kuti, Mary J. Blige, Todd Rundgren, and LL Cool J are the nominees for Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's 2021 class. The inductees will be announced in May, CNN reports.