"Jazz has somehow rediscovered its roots as populist music, embarking on a new and unscripted dialogue with mainstream culture. To some extent, jazz has even turned into a kind of talisman for forward-looking sounds in commercial music" - jazz music writer Ted Gioia writes in the third edition of his great book 'The History of Jazz', out now. "Artists as different from each other as Kamasi Washington, Esperanza Spalding, Shabaka Hutchings, and Robert Glasper have shown that they can draw on the full range of current-day song styles without losing their jazz roots, and attract a young crossover audience who are energized and excited by this give-and-take".

The Weeknd's 'Blinding Lights' has spent a record-breaking 88th week on the Billboard Hot 100 (on the chart dated Aug. 21). It passes Imagine Dragons' 'Radioactive', which spent 87 weeks on the survey in 2012-14. Billboard talked to Imagine Dragons' Dan Reynolds about their song and passing the torch to The Weeknd.

“With a slightly heavy heart I am no longer a member of the Cure! Good luck to them all” - Simon Gallup, longtime bassist for the Cure, says in a public Facebook post, the Rolling Stone reports. When asked in the comments if his departure was health-related, Gallup responded - “I’m ok… just got fed up of betrayal".

The most popular band to sport on a T-shirt is AC/DC, as 21.4 percent of the participants in Rush Order Tees survey of 1,017 people say they own at least one of their shirts. Aerosmith, Queen, Pink Floyd and Green Day were the other contenders in the Top 5. Heavy metal fans own the most band T-shirts with a whopping 17 on average.

Norwegian Eera became a musician although her grandfather, a conductor, told her not to, luckily she did - she shared a mighty guitar-pop song 'Ladder' from her debut album; Denzel Curry hits a bull-eye with “You don’t need to brag or dress up when all your shit flame” on ‘The Game’; EarthGang flip Erykah Baud’s ‘Window Seat’ on ‘Erykah’; Bouquet share atmospheric hardcore song ‘Southpaw’; IDHAZ goes into pop’s leftfield on ‘If I Am Afraid’; Boldy James delivers some great raps on The Alchemist produced ‘Turpentine’; just a lovely guitar-and-strings song ‘Lake Superior’ by Tasha; Carcass mix death-metal and hard-rock (death-rock?!?) on their first new song in eight years 'Dance of Ixtab'; Brooklyn rapper Ka shares a moody song 'I Notice'.

Mabel, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Glastonbury’s Emily Eavis are backing the new Safe Spaces Now music industry initiative calling for change to end the harassment and abuse of women at gigs and festivals, the Guardian reports. Organisers of the initiative say more than 40% of women under 40 have experienced sexual harassment at a live music event. Claire Barnett, the executive director of UN Women UK, said recently released data revealed just 3% of 18 to 24-year-old women had not been harassed in a public space.

Nanci Griffith, a Texas-born singer-songwriter celebrated in folk and country-music circles for her crystalline voice and storytelling skill, died Friday in Nashville at age 68, Tennessean reports. Throughout her career, Griffith cornered a self-described "folkabilly" sound that merged elements of country music with her empathetic folk sensibilities.

Jamie Spears, Britney Spears' father, has agreed to step down as her conservator, according to documents filed with the Los Angeles Superior Court Thursday, NPR reports. The documents state that there are "no actual grounds for suspending or removing him under Probate Code section 2650" but that he has chosen to step down because of the "public battle with his daughter". The language of the documents also appears to question pop star's stability - "it is highly debatable whether a change in conservator at this time would be in Ms. Spears' best interests".

Phoebe Bridgers has shared her cover of Metallica’s 'Nothing Else Matters', about to be released on the covers album 'The Metallica Blacklist'. Bridgers said - "I feel like my version almost sounds baroque. Literally, James [Hetfield] does all sorts of weird octave jumps and stuff that I can’t do, and I almost have a Billie Eilish approach of right by the microphone, performing it the opposite of them, which was really fun to lean into”.

Seungri, the 30-year-old former singer from the popular Korean boyband Big Bang, was convicted for three years for arranging sex services and other charges stemming from a sex and gambling scandal, South China Morning Post reports. Big Bang enjoyed widespread fame after their 2006 debut, and 'Seungri' – real name Lee Seung-hyun – went on to become a successful businessman. He was convicted of arranging sex services for potential investors in his business. Seungri was also ordered to pay 1.15 billion Korean won (US$1 million) in restitution.

“What began as a straightforward glimpse into an artist’s life and career gradually morphed into something altogether different – and strange” - the press release for 'The Nowhere Inn', starring St. Vincent, Carrie Brownstein, and Dakota Johnson, reads. Directed by Bill Benz, the metafictional film features the stars portraying fictional versions of themselves out to make a documentary about the provocateur otherwise known as Annie Clark (St. Vincent of course). “You’re nerdy and normal in real life, but the disparity between that and who you are on stage as St. Vincent is jarring” - Brownstein says in the trailer, leading Clark to reply - “I can be St. Vincent all the time, so that I can be a little bit more interesting”.

Justin Bieber leads the field for the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards with seven nominations. Megan Thee Stallion follows with six. Billie Eilish, BTS, Doja Cat, Drake, Olivia Rodrigo, Lil Nas X, Ed Sheeran, The Weeknd and more are also among this year’s nominees. Check out all the nominees at MTV.

With 22 nods in 13 categories, Bad Bunny leads the list of finalists for the 2021 Billboard Latin Music Awards. Bad Bunny, with three albums under his belt, is nominated in the artist of the year, songwriter of the year, Hot Latin Songs artist of the year, top Latin rhythm album and top Latin album of the year categories. Maluma follows with 11 nominations, J Balvin with 9, and Karol G, Anuel AA and Black Eyed Peas with 8 each. Check out all the nominees on Billboard.

Ugandan rapper Blaq Bandana and Italian producer Still mix trap, drill, cut kuduro, and electro on ‘Nkwaata’; Lowertown rolls a delicate acoustic guitar on the verge of exploding on ‘The Gaping Mouth’; we have heard it all from the post-rock front, but still, the way Shy, Low mix energy and beauty on ‘Helioentropy’ deserves a recommendation; Moritz Von Oswald Trio slide between minimal techno, jazz, and avant-ambient electronics on ‘Chapter 4’; Courtney Barnett shares some delicate guitar work on ‘Before You Gotta Go’; Big Thief share a feather-light love song 'Little Things'.

“The name British Sea Power had come to feel constricting, like an ancient legacy we were carrying with us” - the alternative British rock band said, announcing a name change to Sea Power. “We always wanted to be an internationalist band but maybe having a specific nation state in our name wasn’t the cleverest way to demonstrate that” - the band added. Sea Power also announced a new album 'Everything Was Forever', and shared a single from it called 'Two Fingers'.

The former CBS Records president who may have been the most powerful person in the music business in the closing years of the 20th century has died, Billboard reports. Walter Yetnikoff helped sell megastars like Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, and Billy Joel. Yetnikoff also cultivated a reputation as a loud, snarling, hard-partying power broker, and was a symbol of an era of past excesses.

Each of GQ’s 21 global editions nominated local artist across a world of genres, in search of pop music’s voices of the future. A few of them are: Thailand rapper Milli; Italian singer/rapper Fedez with a social mission; French Eddy de Pretto - somewhere between chanson and rap; Indian street rapper Divine; Mexican neo-folk singer Natalia Lafourcade; Australian indigenous rapper Ziggy Ramo; J-Pop singer Fujii Kaze; Spanish flamenco singer Israel Fernández... Listen to all of the selected here.

Ruth Radelet, Adam Miller, and Nat Walker of the synth-pop quartet Chromatics have announced the break-up of their band, Consequence reports. The statement announcing Chromatics’ breakup doesn't make a mention of their longtime bandmate Johnny Jewel, who also released the group’s music through his Italians Do It Better record label. Jewel separately announced that "he’ll continue making music and supporting great art and artists through his label Italians Do It Better".

Billie Eilish's new album 'Happier Than Ever' has debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. Of the 238,000 equivalent units sold, 73,000 of them were vinyl records, the second-most vinyl records sold in an album's first week since 1991. The benchmark is currently held by Taylor Swift's 2021 album 'Evermore', which sold 102,000 vinyls in its first seven days, Billboard reports.

Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie has sold her 115-title song catalog, including hits such as 'Don’t Stop', 'You Make Loving Fun', 'Over My Head', 'Songbird', and 'Say You Love Me', to Hipgnosis, Music Business Worldwide reports. McVie first joined Fleetwood Mac in 1970 helping them become one of the most commercially successful music artists of the past 50 years, with the Grammy-winning 1977 album 'Rumours' selling more than 45 million copies worldwide. Hipgnosis has spent more than $2 billion in three years acquiring rights to a vast number of popular songs. Hipgnosis’s filings reveal that McVie's 115 songs acquired in the deal generated $1.7 million in 2020, $1.72m in 2019 and $1.58m in 2018. Hipgnosis usually pays an average multiple of 15 times the annual income, which would bring the price to McVie's songs to approx. $100 million.

Japanese band Oavette shares a jazzy/post-rock gem 'Neus'; Lingua Ignota takes a turn into Appalachian Gothic with ‘Repent Now Confess Now’; Deafheaven are keeping their stylistic U-turn with their latest, melancholic single ‘In Blur’; Martina Topley Bird shares ‘Topic’, produced by Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja; one of the highlights on Nas' new album is ‘Nobody’, which sees him reuniting with Ms. Lauryn Hill.

A lovely story in Pollstar about Dan O'Connor who has been jumping into Lake Michigan every day for over a year. Beginning of this year he started inviting musicians to perform live on the water's edge while he jumped, and using his daily ritual as a platform to fundraise for Chicago music venues.

Kanye West levitated hundreds of feet in the air at the second live-stream of his highly anticipated album, 'Donda', Pitchfork reports. West was shown lying on his back as he was flown on a wire hundreds of feet in the air while his single, "No Child Left Behind" played. About 35,000 West fans witnessed the retooled 'Donda', which sounded more cohesive, with more beats and melodies.

Rihanna has officially entered the billionaire’s club, with Forbes estimating her dollar worth at $1.7 billion. The pop star and business mogul - founder of fashion house Fenty as well as makeup line Fenty Beauty - is now the wealthiest female musician in the world and the second-wealthiest female entertainer in the world after Oprah Winfrey.

Charlie Watts will miss The Rolling Stones’ upcoming US tour after undergoing an unspecified medical procedure, Rolling Stone reports. In his own statement, Watts joked that “for once, my timing has been a little off". Watts' friend and longtime Rolling Stones associate Steve Jordan, who is a member of Keith Richards’ side project X-Pensive Winos, will be filling in on drums. Watts, who recently turned 80, hasn’t missed a Rolling Stones gig since January 1963.

Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot said she doesn’t fear a surge of coronavirus cases tied to Lollapalooza, in part because her public health commissioner “went incognito” to the music festival without valid proof of vaccination and was turned away, Chicago Sun-Times reports. Mayor also said she is “confident that thousands of people — mostly young people, which is our toughest demographic — got vaccinated simply because they wanted to go to Lollapalooza", adding that "every single day, they turned hundreds of people away — either who didn’t have the right paperwork or had an expired test that wasn’t taken within 72 hours. That tells me there is a rigor around the protocols that they were using to screen people”. Lollapalooza is the largest festival of its kind in the world this year.

The U.K.’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has announced that it has negotiated short-term tours for UK musicians and performers without visas and work permits in 19 EU member states, NME reports. These countries are: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden. Trade bodies and unions representing British musicians say this changes nothing, insist "short term" is undefined, adding that there is still the issue of equipment transportation, Guardian reports. Formal approaches via officials and DCMS Ministers have been made to Spain, Croatia, Greece, Portugal, Bulgaria, Romania, Malta and Cyprus. The U.K. allows touring performers and support staff to come to the U.K. for up to three months without a visa.

"Paul Johnson’s signature meld of disco loops, overdriven kicks and unfiltered sleaze was nothing short of alchemy. Even when chopping up the vocals of Leroy Burgess or Roy Ayers, Johnson’s records simmered with raucous charisma, a gift that made him stand out amongst greats of the ’90s house scene" - DJ Mag writes about Paul Johnson, who died aged 50 "leaving behind a chasm in house music".

The Offspring drummer Pete Parada posted on his social media that he’s been ousted from the group because he won’t agree to get the COVID vaccine. He's been told he is not welcome on the upcoming tour, as well as not to show up at the studio either. Parada claims to have a legitimate medical reason for not getting the jab (the Guillain-Barré syndrome), Rolling Stone reports. In similar, COVID-related news, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that proof of vaccination will be required to participate in indoor activities, including live performances and entertainment, a first-of-its-kind program in the U.S., Billboard reports. Also, Japanese Breakfast announced that all upcoming shows for the tour will be masked and require either proof of vaccination or a negative PCR within 48 hours preceding the show.

Sony Music generated $1.39 billion from recorded music in the second quarter of 2021, a 48.2% year-on-year rise, or a massive USD $451 million versus the same period in 2020. Sony generated $996.4 million from streaming alone – an all-time high, and brushing the magic billion dollar mark for the first time, Music Business Worldwide reports. This recorded music streaming revenue haul was up by a whopping 50.2% year-on-year, versus the $663.4 million the firm posted in calendar Q2 2020. Sony's biggest revenue-generating projects were by Harry Styles, Lil Nas X, and Polo G.