Multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Ian McDonald, best known for his co-founding roles in both King Crimson and Foreigner, died Wednesday at the age of 75. McDonald was known as one of the key architects of progressive rock, playing both saxophone and keyboards in King Crimson and co-writing its iconic 1969 debut, 'In the Court of the Crimson King'. The record’s opening track, '21st Century Schizoid Man', featured McDonald’s wild double-tracked alto-sax solo. Guardian describes him as "a galvanising force in the group’s potent mix". McDonald also co-founded rock outfit Foreigner with guitarist Mick Jones.

Singer, songwriter and bassist Sting has sold his entire song catalog to Universal Music Publishing Group, MBW reports, adding an assessment by an expert industry source who believes the final acquisition fee reached north of $300 million. The catalog features the entirety of both Sting’s solo works, as well as those with The Police, including mega-hits like 'Roxanne', 'Every Breath You Take', 'Shape Of My Heart', 'If I Ever Lose My Faith In You', 'Fields Of Gold', 'Desert Rose', 'Message in a Bottle', 'Englishman in New York' and 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic'.

Matty Karas wrote a lovely short obituary to Betty Davis - "the 1970s funk queen who wrote for the Commodores and the Chambers Brothers, was married to Miles Davis just long enough to turn him on to psychedelic rock, released three albums of raw, unbridled, sexually and musically liberated soul so far ahead of their time that we might not be there yet, and then, having failed to find an audience for her music, walked away".

Adele won the top three prizes at the BRIT Awards on Tuesday - song of the year for her chart-topping single 'Easy on Me', album of the year for her comeback album '30', and artist of the year, a now genderless category in which rappers Little Simz and Dave, as well as singers Ed Sheeran and Sam Fender, were also nominated. Rock band Wolf Alice took best group, rapper Little Simz was named best new artist, Ed Sheeran was named songwriter of the year, while Dave was named best hip-hop/grime/rap act. Check out all the winners here.

Universal Music Group, Sony Music Group, and Warner Music Group generated $20.28 billion in annual revenues in 2021, which is the equivalent of turning over around $2.3 million every hour, MBW reports. Warner generated $5.58 billion across its global music publishing and recorded music divisions in calendar 2021, Sony generated $7.49 billion, whereas Universal generated $7.21 billion in just the first nine months of 2021 – not including Q4.

In the two music-related Oscar categories, these are the nominees: original song - 'Be Alive' from 'King Richard' by DIXSON and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, 'Dos Oruguitas' from 'Encanto' by Lin-Manuel Miranda, 'Down to Joy' from 'Belfast' by Van Morrison, 'No Time To Die' from the latest Bond movie of the same name, by Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell, 'Somehow You Do' from 'Four Good Days' by Diane Warren; the original score category - 'Don't Look Up' by Nicholas Britell, 'Dune' by Hans Zimmer, 'Encanto' by Germaine Franco, 'Parallel Mothers' by Alberto Iglesias, and 'The Power of the Dog' by Jonny Greenwood. Check out all the nominees here.

Syl Johnson, Chicago soul and blues singer, has died aged 85, Pitchfork reports. His 1967 song 'Different Strokes' would go on to be sampled by Public Enemy ('Fight the Power'), Wu-Tang Clan ('Shame on a N---a') Eric B. & Rakim ('I Know You Got Soul'), Jay-Z and Kanye West ('The Joy'), De La Soul ('The Magic Number'), and countless others. WhoSampled cites over 300 songs that utilize portions of Johnson’s original, making it one of the most influential pieces of music in hip-hop.

Music piracy declined consistently year-on-year from January 2017 - there was a 65% decrease in music-related piracy visits globally in 2021 compared to 2017. Then, last year, a change - there was a 2.18% increase in 2021 compared to 2020, and an 18.6% increase in Q4 2021 compared to Q4 2020. MBW looks for reasons. The No.1 online destination for music piracy is so called ‘stream-ripping’ websites, which allow users to rip and download audio from YouTube, and which accounted for 39.2% of all music piracy globally in 2021, up from 33.9% in 2020.

Eminem, Dolly Parton, Rage Against the Machine, Lionel Richie, Duran Duran, Carly Simon, A Tribe Called Quest, Kate Bush, Devo, Beck, Judas Priest, Eurythmics, Pat Benatar, Fela Kuti, MC5, New York Dolls, and Dionne Warwick are among the nominees for Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s 2022 class, Consequence reports.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young have pulled their respective solo catalogs as well as the music they made together from Spotify, Rolling Stone reports. “We support Neil and we agree with him that there is dangerous disinformation being aired on Spotify’s Joe Rogan podcast” a joint statement announcing that they plan to remove their music reads - “While we always value alternate points of view, knowingly spreading disinformation during this global pandemic has deadly consequences. Until real action is taken to show that a concern for humanity must be balanced with commerce, we don’t want our music — or the music we made together — to be on the same platform”.

Warner Music Group, the world’s third largest music rights company, has announced a “legacy unrecouped advances program”, which will in effect scrap any unrecouped debt for artists who signed to the label before the year 2000. The program is set to be put into effect on July 1. MBW assesses this news as "huge".

Black Country, New Road frontman and co-founder Isaac Wood is leaving the band, sharing this as a reason: “Together we have been writing songs and then performing them, which at times has been an incredible doing, but more now everything happens that I am feeling not so great and it means from now I won’t be a member of the group anymore". Black Country, New Road are canceling their upcoming North American tour. The band, however, is not breaking up and is due to release their new album 'Ants From Up There' this Friday, February 4.

Nils Lofgren, a member of Neil Young & Crazy Horse and Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, has pulled his music from Spotify in protest of the platform’s spread of COVID disinformation, following Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. “Music is our planet’s sacred weapon, uniting and healing billions of souls every day. Pick up your sword and start swinging” - Lofgren wrote.

Joni Mitchell has announced on her blog that she intended to remove “all my music” from Spotify, MBW reports. Her reason are “irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives”. Mitchell added: “I stand in solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical communities on this issue”. Neil Young pulled his albums from Spotify due to his belief that the podcaster Joe Rogan has been spreading untruths about Covid vaccinations on the service.

Two days before his death, Jimi Hendrix played with Eric Burdon, the former Animals frontman, who had recently teamed up with Latin-influenced rock band War. When the group began a residency at London jazz club Ronnie Scott’s, they were playing some of their first concerts together. Burdon invited Hendrix to sit in, and he showed up on the evening of Sept. 16, 1970 for the second set, and played moving, dramatic phrases all across the ensemble’s covers of blues and folk standards 'Mother Earth' and 'Tobacco Road', rousing the crowd to cheer and holler at the stage, Rolling Stone reports. Recording of guitarist jamming with War, remastered by filmmaker Oliver Murray and his team, features in upcoming doc chronicling London jazz club Ronnie Scott’s.

Rihanna has donated $15 million to the Climate Justice Alliance, the Indigenous Environmental Network, the Movement for Black Lives, and 15 other organizations that work to restore climate justice in the United States and Rihanna’s home – the Caribbean. “Climate disasters, which are growing in frequency and intensity, do not impact all communities equally, with communities of color and island nations facing the brunt of climate change,” Rihanna says in a statement announcing her support.

"The tension between dreams and reality, spirit and society, permeate every layer of Baghdadi’s impressionistic film. Personal narrative and genres like road and war documentaries interweave as Mayassi, Bechara, and their bandmates struggle to find their definition of success in a society that was not built to appreciate their work. But make no mistake: This is not another stereotypical work that casts Arab women as meek victims of repression. It’s a rallying cry (well, scream) for self-determination and rebellion" - The Daily Beast presents Rita Baghdadi’s new documentary 'Sirens', about the Middle East’s only all-female thrash metal band Slaves to Sirens.

Investment company HarbourView Equity Partners has acquired the publishing catalog of latin music superstar Luis Fonsi, the artist known globally for his megahit 'Despacito' with Daddy Yankee, MBW reports. Launched just four months ago by former Tempo Music CEO Sherrese Clarke Soares, HarbourView is focused on investment opportunities in the media and entertainment space. The Financial Times reports that “industry executives estimated that Fonsi’s catalog could fetch as much as $100 million”.

Neil Young has posted an open letter to his website directing his management and record label to remove all of his music from Spotify, which he accused of “spreading fake information about vaccines—potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them”. He wrote “they can have [Joe] Rogan or Young. Not both”, referencing the Spotify podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, which doctors have decried for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines, Rolling Stone reports.

Pitchfork shares a lovely introductory text about part 1 of 'Jeen-Yuhs', a new, 3-part Kanye West documentary, 21 years in the making: "Much of what Donda West says in 'Act 1 (Vision)' feels like ancestral wisdom, words from a loving parent that serve to humble and uplift her child. One passage in particular stands out, and Coodie even repeats it in his own narration of the film: 'You can stay on the ground and be in the air at the same time', she says, a paradox that West made true until the day Donda died".

Bob Dylan has sold the master rights to his entire recorded music catalog to Sony Music Entertainment, in a deal worth over $200 million, by Billboard estimate. In 2020, Dylan sold the publishing rights of his entire catalog to Universal Music Publishing in a deal that’s estimated to be worth over $300 million. Songs have two copyrights: recorded rights (which include master tracks) and publishing rights (which pertain to composition—i.e., music and lyrics). Rolling Stone puts it simply: “Recorded rights are tied more directly to streaming and sales royalties while publishing rights pertain more to performances and use in film and television”.

The Weeknd has now risen to have 85,667,564 monthly listeners on Spotify, becoming the artist with the most monthly listeners on the platform, Hip Hop DX reports. The title had previously been held by Justin Bieber for nearly a year. The feat comes after The Weeknd has released his new album ‘Dawn FM’ earlier this month. 'Dawn FM' has also set a new record for the Billboard Global 200 chart with 24 charting songs, making the most ever by a solo male artist.

Ahead of the February 2nd premiere of the 25th season, 'South Park' creators have released an orchestral performance of the 'SP' original 'Gay Fish'. This iconic tune from Season 13, Episode 5 was sung by a character named Kanye West, who, after a full episode of not understanding a joke about fishsticks, had just discovered, to his great relief, that not only was he an aquatic vertebrate, but he was a homosexual one at that.

Don Wilson, co-founder and rhythm guitarist of surf rock legends The Ventures, has died of natural causes at age 88, Ultimate Classic Rock reports. The Ventures had massive hits with their rendition of Johnny Smith's 'Walk, Don't Run' and the 'Hawaii Five-O' theme. They've been cited as an influence by The Beatles' George Harrison, The Beach Boys' Carl Wilson, Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, Creedence Clearwater Revival's John Fogerty and others.

Black Country, New Road take a turn on 'Snow Globes' to some classic post-rock-like crescendo drama; J.I.D demonstrates some great flow on ‘Surround Sound’; Sevdaliza announces her new EP with trippy love song ‘High Alone’; Nilüfer Yanya slides through tension on ‘Midnight Sun’; and one that has passed under the radar - Ruth Radelet’s cover of Elliott Smith’s ‘Twilight’.

US singer and actor Meat Loaf has died aged 74, with unconfirmed reports suggesting he had died of Covid-19, Rolling Stone reports. Meat Loaf’s 1977 debut album 'Bat Out of Hell' remains one of the biggest-selling albums in history, whereas his 1993 album 'Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell' produced the global hit single 'I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)'. He completed the 'Bat Out of Hell' trilogy with 'The Monster Is Loose' in 2006. The three albums have sold more than 65m copies worldwide. Meat Loaf appeared in more than 50 films and TV shows, among them 'Fight Club', 'Wayne’s World' and 'Spiceworld the Movie'.

Acclaimed metalcore and hardcore band Every Time I Die has announced that their last show together took place on December 11th, Loudwire reports. The band breaks up after a 20-plus year career. Every Time I Die had just released their ninth album, 'Radical', in October.

Bono doesn't like hates the band’s name, and is “embarrassed” by most of their songs, as he's told the Awards Chatter podcast (via CNN). When it comes to band's name “in our head it was like the spy plane, U-boat, it was futuristic — as it turned out to imply this kind of acquiescence, no I don’t like that name. I still don’t really like the name”. The music isn't much better either: “I’ve been in the car when one of our songs has come on the radio and I’ve been the color of, as we say in Dublin, scarlet. I’m just so embarrassed”.

A great thread by the Future of Music Coalition about Bandcamp Fridays, a day where the company waived its usual cut of the revenue to pass on more money to artists and rightsholders. In 15 Bandcamp Fridays since March 2020 fans paid artists/labels $61 million. The waived rev-share works out to an effective donation by Bandcamp of roughly $7 million.

Very interesting facts in Rolling Stone's article about last year's highest-paid musicians. The world’s 10 highest-paid musicians of 2021 made in a combined $2.3 billion, which is more than double what they were making annually in the years before Covid-19. Only Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Taylor Swift made the top 10 without a massive catalog sale, the others like Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, and Red Hot Chili Peppers made a majority of their income by selling their catalogs.