American singer-songwriter Todd Rundgren has embarked on a virtual tour of 25 American cities which is broadcast from the same Chicago stage, but geo-targeted to different regional markets, Variety reports. Shows come with visual cues saluting the would-be host towns and multiple shout-outs to the virtually targeted city. The focus is on making each show a unique event, with a virtual perimeter that will restrict viewing of a particular show to audience members who live there. Prior to shows, there’s the sound of murmuring people looking for their seats, and for every city on the video wall behind the band there'll be a picture of the actual proscenium stage. This virtual tour runs February through March. Tickets go for $35.

Spotify, Apple, Amazon, YouTube, Pandora and 15 other digital service providers paid out a total of $424.38 million to the Mechanical Licensing Collective in accrued historical unmatched royalties, Forbes reports. It's 10 years of royalties DSPs have collected but couldn't match countless songs to their writers and publishers, so they just - sat on that half a billion dollars. In addition to their payments, the DSPs also delivered more than 1,800 data files, which contain in excess of 1.3 terabytes and 9 billion lines of data. The MLC is now reviewing and analyzing the data in order to find and pay the proper copyright owners.

DJ Mag describes what have the UK night clubs been up to in lockdown. Sneaky Petes, Edinburgh - reopened as a pizza bar; Printworks, London - hosted production projects and live-streams; Studio 338, London - transformed into a food bank; Invisible Wind Factory, Liverpool - used as a COVID-19 testing centre; Fabric, London - has been reflecting and “identified lots of little details and some larger improvements"...

Italian progressive metal band Benthos shares ephemeral 'Debris // Essence'; Maria BC shares 'Adelaide' from their minimal synth-pop debut EP; For Your Health share melodic punk screamo 'Push the Fucking Rock Sissy'; Debby Friday shares her banging pop song 'Runnin''; Spectral Wound share their melodic black metal assault 'Frigid and Spellbound'.

DaBaby shared some family clips on his social media unveling how he charged $5,000 for a feature in January 2019. In the meantime, his price went up 40 times over - "From 5k a verse to 300k", XXL reports.

In an amazing turn of concepts, audio archivist Luke Owen has released a compilation of not the music, but the commercials played between the songs on pirate radios. The great Simon Reynolds says "these pirate adverts are joyous mementoes of enterprising fun, young people grabbing good times at the outer edge of the law". 'London Pirate Radio Adverts 1984-1993' Vol 1 is available digitally at a name-your-price rate and for £7.50 as a limited-edition cassette tape.

'80s pop and heavy metal are the best musical genres for lowering blood pressure and heart rate, Metal Sucks reports on a recent Istanbul study. The study recruited 1,540 adults, ranging in age from 18 to 65, for a series of mental stress tests while listening to music. The '80s pop playlist prompted a blood pressure drop in 96 percent of respondents and a heart rate reduction of 36 percent. A mix of metal classics elicited a decrease in blood pressure among 89 percent of those studied and a reduction in heart rate in 18 percent of the listeners.

Guardian presents the music scene that has merged from Nordic culture and traditions, via dark and ambient folk, played on ancient string and horn instruments, as well as animal hide drums. Some of the musicians are Heilung who play with human bones, Wardruna who chose burial mounds to record their music, a Danish lady Myrkur who turned from black-metal to Danish sagas.

Anti-riot police have arrested Spanish rapper Pablo Hasél who barricaded himself with dozens of his supporters in a university, BBC reports. The rapper was escorted by riot police out of Lleida University's rectorate building, in the northeastern Catalonia region, where he and over 50 supporters had locked themselves in since mid-Monday. Hasél has been sentenced to 9 months in prison for glorifying terrorism and slandering the crown and state institutions over tweets and lyrics that attacked the monarchy and police.

Quick coronavirus testing could enable nightclubs and theatres to reopen, British premier Boris Johnson said, according to Daily Mail. The PM said "rapid" lateral flow tests "in combination with vaccination, will probably be the route forward", could be used by "those parts of the economy we couldn't get open last year". Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi said the government would rely on rapid testing and "making people access their own personal vaccination records" on the NHS app, rather than issuing vaccine passports.

Iced Earth singer Stu Block and bassist Luke Appleton have quit the band following founding member Jon Schaffer's arrest for his involvement in the Washington DC riot on January 6, Loudwire reports. "It’s the best decision in many ways for my personal/ professional growth going forward. Time to move on, heal and prosper" - Block wrote on Facebook. Schaffer is in federal custody facing six counts related to the January 6 incident, including "engaging in an act of physical violence in a Capitol building".

Johnny Pacheco, the legendary bandleader who cofounded Fania Records in the 1960s and became one of the leading architects of salsa, has died aged 85, NPR reports. Pacheco found success recording with his band Pacheco y Su Charanga, and also sparked a musical revolution when, in 1964, he met Jerry Masucci and together, they founded Fania Records. Fania soon became known as the Latin Motown, home to superstars like Celia Cruz, Cheo Feliciano and Héctor Lavoe, and the breeding ground for seminal artists in the genre of music that would come to be known as “salsa”, a collision of traditional Cuban song and pan-Latin rhythms with American jazz and funk.

Guardian jazz music critic combs through "one of the most garlanded and wide-ranging catalogues in the genre’s history" to present Chick Corea's 10 best recordings, from "showboating and sensitive", as the pianist "traversed the distance between experimentation and accessibility".

The radio has pretty much cancelled Morgan Wallen due to his racial slur scandal, but his album sales have seen an uptick, Billboard reports. His latest record 'Dangerous: The Double Album' continues to rule the Billboard 200 chart for a fifth straight week - it earned 150,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Feb. 11 (up 1%). Wallen’s previous set, 2018’s 'If I Know Me', reaches the top 10 for the first time with 29,000 equivalent album units earned, which also marks the album’s best weeks, in terms of units earned.

Mogwai share a 'Pat Stains' featuring sax-magician Colin Stetson who adds tension to the calming song; Anika Pyle goes simple and comforting on 'Blame'; So Badly turn to dream pop on 'Harley Davidson'.

"Very few people can claim to have changed the way we hear music. @Rupert_Neve was one of them" - Guitar Center tweeted following the news of audio equipment pioneer Rupert Neve's death at age 94, Ultimate Classic Rock reports. Neve was one of the leading pioneers in creating the analog recording equipment that many rock bands used to record their albums over the years. Neve pursued a career that he continued to enjoy for over 80 years, and at 94 he remained engaged and passionate about his work, spending most days on a perpetual series of audio electronics projects and continuing to mentor on numerous projects.

Rapper-entrepreneur Jay-Z and Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and Square, have joined to form a new Bitcoin fund, focused on developing the cryptocurrency’s adoption initially in Africa and India, CNet reports. The duo are investing 500 Bitcoin, worth about $24 million, in the project, according to Dorsey, with the mission of making Bitcoin “the internet’s currency".

Justin Timberlake on Friday apologized to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson amid criticism he has received in the wake of a new documentary about his former girlfriend, the LA Times reports. The 'Framing Britney Spears' docu includes a discussion of the high-profile relationship between Spears and Timberlake and suggests Spears was shamed in the media for her behavior when the relationship ended while Timberlake boasted about having slept with her. Timberlake apologizes to both Spears and Janet Jackson, his fellow Super Bowl halftime performer during the infamous "wardrobe malfunction" incident - "because I know and respect these women and I know I failed". Timberlake was in a relationship with Spears for three years before the couple broke up in 2002, when he was 21 years old and she was 20.

American politician Stacey Plaskett quoted both Run the Jewels and GZA at the impeachment trial of Donald Trump. On February 10th, Plaskett addressed Congress about the issue and opened with a quote from Wu-Tang word-smith GZA - “The truth is usually seen and rarely heard”. Plaskett then proceeded to reference RTJ - “Truth is truth, whether denied or not”.

NPR shares a somber music story that has happened in the dark shadow of politics, about kamancheh and setar player and vocalist Kayhan Kalhor. Born in Iran, he left at age 17 during the Iranian Revolution, walking more than 2,500 miles over the Balkans and to Rome, working on the road. After coming to Canada and finishing school he grew a global reputation as a part of Silkroad Ensemble, the artistic collective founded by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, he has written music for filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and has collaborated with a range of vaunted artists, from Kronos Quartet, Brooklyn Rider and the New York Philharmonic to Malian kora master Toumani Diabaté and Dutch jazz pianist Rembrandt Frerichs. After decades of living in Canada and the US, he lost the immigration battle with the US authorities and has returned to Iran.

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.