World’s largest concert promoter, Live Nation returned to profit last quarter after about two years of losses, citing the return of summer shows following Covid-19 lockdowns, Bloomberg reports. Adjusted operating income amounted to $305.7 million in the third quarter, rebounding from a $319.2 million loss a year earlier. Revenue soared to $2.7 billion.
'Bread Song' by Black Country, New Road is a slow-burning, mighty transoid psych song; Robert Plant and Alison Krauss conquer with beauty and style with 'It Don't Bother Me', a Bert Jansch cover.
Stereogum picks out 40 musicians "that make us most excited about the future", which includes Bruiser Wolf, Olivia Rodrigo, Enumclaw, For Your Health, Indigo de Souza, Horsegirl, Mustafa, PinkPantheress among others. The criteria is that "all of them are doing something worth hearing right now, and deserve to have your ears on them going forward". Check out the full list.
Flavor Flav, Riff Raff, Ne-Yo, Vic Mensa, Mötley Crüe's Tommy Lee, Sean Kingston, Randy Jackson and many more are among 184 musicians that can currently be found on Cameo, a website offering personalized videos. Musicians, actors, models, reality stars and YouTubers greet their fans by their name, and maybe even throw in a couple of personal touches, like their birth date or favorite food. The clips are usually gifted for special occasions, like a birthday, engagement, job promotion for a price ranging anywhere from $5 to $999. Billboard reports on it.
Rolling Stone covers the story of R&B and disco star Johnnie Taylor whose family claims Sony hasn’t been transparent with royalty payments for his music. Music royalty manager Tim Langridge gives a simple albeit shocking explanation: "Nobody knows royalties; even people [who work in] royalties don’t understand it”. The system, he says, is “so convoluted and crazy so artists don’t understand it. Of course heirs don’t understand it, and most people in the music business don’t even understand it”.
Mick Jenkins shares southern-psychedelic ‘Gucci Tried to Tell Me’; Eels delve into synth-pop/rock with 'Good Night on Earth'; Tendai combines r’n’b and hip-hop on ‘Infinite Straight’; Marissa Nadler shares the mystical 'Couldn't Have Done the Killing'.
Music Business Worldwide is pretty much impressed by the latest YouTube revenue numbers: the world’s largest video platform generated $7.205 billion in revenues from advertising in Q3 this year, up 43%, or by over $2 billion, year-on-year versus the same quarter of 2020. In the first nine months of this year, YouTube generated $20.21 billion from advertising, more than it generated from ads in the entirety of both 2020 ($19.77bn) and 2019 ($15.15bn). To put that in perspective - in 2019, the global record industry generated $20.2 billion in global wholesale revenues. In 2020, it generated $21.6 billion.
Jazz guitarist Pat Martino, revered for the fluid precision and blistering speed of his playing died on Monday at the age of 77. In 1980, after undergoing neurosurgery that saved his life, he was forced to relearn the instrument. Regardless of the setting, Martino played the guitar with an intensity of focus and impeccable clarity at even the most dizzying pace, NPR insists.
Vevo has unveiled its 2022 DSCVR Artists To Watch list, featuring 21 exciting new artists in the US, UK, Europe and beyond. The Vevo list which has in the past spotlighted the likes of Billie Eilish, Lewis Capaldi and Sam Smith early in their careers. MBW presents this year's cohort:
"Paul McCartney is not an easy man to impress, but a little over four hours into the 2021 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony — which saw surprise appearances from Dave Chappelle, Eminem, and Jennifer Lopez, along with incredible performances by Taylor Swift, LL Cool J, Carole King, Jennifer Hudson, Christina Aguilera and the Go-Go’s — he genuinely seemed a little awestruck when he stepped onto the stage to induct the Foo Fighters" - Rolling Stone starts its piece about last night's Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Read it in full - here.
Carl Palmer, the only living member of Emerson, Lake & Palmer will reunite the trio, possibly late next year using previously unseen footage of the band at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 1992, Rolling Stone reports. Palmer is planning to drum live alongside those unearthed split-screen clips of Emerson and Lake. “It will look authentic, it will look real, and it will be in sync. And it’ll be something better than a hologram” - Palmer insists.
The co-founder and the guitarist of the Stockholm post-punk band Viagra Boys, has died aged 47. Representatives of the band shared this lovely note with Pitchfork: “Benjamin or “Benis” as we knew him, spread laughter and happiness wherever he went and we will cherish the memories we have of touring the world together. Benjamin, we love you with all of our hearts and Viagra Boys would have been nothing without you. This planet just lost one the good ones”.
A new study by Surfshark examined a variety of music sites to find which are the most invasive when it comes to tracking us online. They also looked at the safest. On Bandcamp five trackers were found. Rolling Stone on the other side 69 trackers were found.
John Hinckley Jr., the would-be assassin of former American President Ronald Reagan, complained about alleged unpaid royalties for a song he says he "co-wrote" with the band Devo. Hinckley wrote a poem as an obsessive verse written to actress Jodie Foster, who Hinckley had been stalking and hoped to impress by assassinating Reagan. Devo's Gerald V. Casale said that DEVO was "blown away by the poetic sociopathy" of Hinckley's poetry and used a few of his verses in their song 'I Desire'. It seems he got at least $610 in royalties so far. Newsweek brings the crazy story.
The all-women band Yemberzal come from Kashmir, they play their distinctly traditional Sufiyana music at home and recording their sessions on their mobile phones. However, they can't reach anybody with it, as Vice reports. In August 2019, the Indian government revoked a 1948 UN resolution that gave Jammu and Kashmir autonomy as the only Muslim-majority state in India, and started one of the longest internet bans in history.
Music creation platform Splice and SoundCloud have joined forces to launch a new emerging artist program called, Nova, open to unsigned Splice and SoundCloud creators, MBW reports. The partnership starts with a series of contests across the Splice and SoundCloud communities with the winners of the first Nova Contest getting the production of their own Splice Sounds pack. Splice is set to release twelve Nova Artist Packs, collections of signature sounds, loops, and samples, starting January 2022.
YoungBoy Never Broke Again was released from Louisiana jail today after seven months behind bars, Rolling Stone reports. Federal prosecutors on his pending California gun case agreed to the terms of the $1.5 million bail and home detention ordered in his separate Baton Rouge gun case by a federal judge last week. The bail with strict house arrest includes a GPS monitor.
The Quietus presents a new book about hip hop’s relation to reality TV, 'Who Got the Camera? A History of Rap and Reality' by Eric Harvey. "Harvey’s central idea, borrowed from French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, that reality rap be understood as a 'hyper-reality'. By this phrase Baudrillard had in mind a world where spectacle and reality become indivisible, where media presentations of the Gulf War or of King’s beating, for instance, overwhelm any actual event. It’s an idea that serves Harvey’s understanding of the King tape, rap music, and reality TV, insofar as all amount to instances where reality and its representation become more or less indiscernible".
Aeon Station share a self-appreciating track 'Leaves' about "learning self-love, finding your voice, and setting on a path for a chance at something better"; Alfa Mist moves smoothly through the night with 'Bumper Cars'; Obongjayar delivers some hard-hitting hip-hop on 'Message in a Hammer'; Jerry Cantrell shares an alt-rock ballad 'Siren Song'.
Major music streamers Spotify, Amazon, and Pandora have filed to the US Copyright Royalty Board recommending a significant reduction in royalty rates over the 2018–2022 period. The three platforms have proposed lowering the rate to pre-2008 levels, with headline rates close to 10.5%. Consequence reports on the sensitive issue.
Adele has gone back to number one in the UK with her new single 'Easy On Me', scoring the biggest chart figures for almost five years - she had a record 24 million streams in the UK in its first week as well as 23,500 downloads. That is equivalent to 217,300 sales - the highest since Ed Sheeran's 'Shape of You' in January 2017, UK Official Charts reports. In the album chart, Coldplay's 'Music of the Spheres' became the fastest-selling record of the year so far, with 101,000 chart sales, Charts reports.
Paul McCartney made an appearance. Bruce Springsteen serenaded the 3,000 people who attended. Alicia Keys sang. The Jonas Brothers ended the night - the event at the Javits Center in New York on Wednesday night raised $77.5 million for the charity that focuses on reducing poverty. Rollin. stone reports about the event.
Some interesting thoughts by The Roots' drummer Questlove about history in his new book 'Music Is History': "I can relate the history dispassionately. That’s something to practice. It’s important. If you let all your emotions in all the time when you’re giving historical accounts, you may find yourself too often overcome by sorrow, rage, and wonder... At the same time that it’s worth being honest about the importance of personalizing history, it’s vital not to limit ourselves to personal points of entry... Understanding history begins with learning history, and learning history begins with being able to see both inside yourself and outside yourself". Rolling Stone brings the excerpt.
Singer/songwriter Amy Shark and hip-hop artist Genesis Owusu both attracted six nominations across as many categories for the 2021 Aria awards. Shark is up for album of the year for 'Cry Forever', whereas her single 'Love Songs Ain’t For Us' (featuring Keith Urban) is nominated in the publicly voted categories of song of the year and best video. She is also nominated for best artist, best pop release and best Australian live act for her Cry Forever Tour 2021. Owusu is nominated for best artist and best album of the year for his debut 'Smiling With No Teeth'. He is also in the running for the best independent release, best hip-hop release and best Australian live act for his Smiling With No Teeth album tour.
The lone existing copy of Wu-Tang Clan’s album 'Once Upon a Time in Shaolin' was bought for $4 million by PleasrDAO, a group with a passion for buying digital collectibles honoring “anti-establishment rebels”. Their previous purchases include NFTs connected to Edward Snowden and the Russian band Pussy Riot, with Nadya from Pussy Riot now being a PleasrDAO member. PleasrDAO describe themselves as “a collective of artists, anons, crypto degens, cypherpunks, and visionaries”. Rolling Stone met the group.
Songwriter and composer Leslie Bricusse, well known for the Nina Simone classic 'Feeling Good', and the theme songs to the James Bond films 'Goldfinger' and 'You Only Live Twice', has died at the age of 90. Bricusse won two Oscars - Best Original Song 'Talk to the Animals' from 1968's 'Doctor Dolittle' and Best Original Score for 'Victor/Victoria' in 1983. His songbook also includes 'Candy Man' and 'Pure Imagination' from 'Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory'. BBC remembers the "lyrical genius of film".
"It’s a genuinely exciting time for music, and three and a half hours seemed, if anything, not enough to give a real feel of all these ideas in the air" - Centuries of Sound reads about its selection of music from 1939. The times were changing back then - "this is the year that swing starts to really split; band leaders were taking inspiration from blues to create an upbeat kind of stripped-down jazz, which would soon be labelled 'rhythm & blues', 'jump blues' and eventually 'rock & roll'. Then there were the swing pioneers, looking to break down ideas about rhythm and melody, big names like Lionel Hampton and Duke Ellington who were kicking off what would soon become 'Bebop'".
Investment giant KKR's new venture Chord has acquired the KMR Music Royalties II portfolio for approximately $1.1 billion, Music Business Worldwide reports. The catalog, which contains over 62,000 copyrights across multiple genres, includes hits by The Weeknd and Lorde.
Employment in the UK music industry plunged by 35% from 197,000 in 2019 to 128,000, UK Music unveiled in its This Is Music 2021 annual report. The report also shows that in 2020 music industry’s economic contribution fell 46% from £5.8bn to £3.1bn in 2020. Launching the report, UK Music called on the Government to introduce tax incentives and other employment-boosting measures to help the sector rebuild after the pandemic.
Adele's comeback single, 'Easy On Me', broke the global record for day-one streams on Spotify after its release on Friday, Rolling Stone reports. UK superstar achieved the same feat on Amazon Music. 'Easy On Me' had 19.75 million chart-eligible day-one Spotify streams (10 plays per head per 24 hours are counted), nearly double of BTS' 'Butter', which had 11.04 million plays on its day one on Spotify in May.16
