In a series of tweets, Kanye West outlined some “new recording and publishing deal guidelines”, demanding for artists to own the copyright for their recordings and songs, and lease them to the label and publisher “for a limited term. 1 year deals”, with those “service provider” partners taking a 20% cut of the income. Also, “every audio file, every asset, every deal stored WITH the money. Money and Music must stay together. When your term ends, download it all. Leave”.

Tyler Childers has dropped a powerful statement with his new album 'Long Violent History' where he stands against racism and violence, and calls for universal values. He introduced the album with a video explaining his concept, best summarized with these words: "What if we were to constantly open up our daily paper and see a headline like ‘East Kentucky Man Shot Seven Times on Fishing Trip?' and read on to find the man was shot while fishing with his son by a game warden who saw him rummaging through his tackle box for his license and thought he was reaching for a knife?... If we wouldn't stand for it. why would we expect another group of Americans to stand for it? Why would we stand silent, or worse, get in the way of it being rectified?". The album consists of 8 songs played on a violin, 7 of which are instrumental covers, and the last one 'Long Violent History' the only with lyrics, and the only one written by Childers. American Songwriter explains the concept; NPR loves the album.

Billie Eilish has launched a collection of toy figurines inspired by the videos for her hit singles ‘Bad Guy’ and ‘All The Good Girls Go To Hell’, Rolling Stone reports. The ‘Bad Guy’ doll stands 10.5 inches tall and features a life-like sculpture of the singer in her yellow sweatsuit. The ‘All The Good Girls Go To Hell’ collectible figure measures six inches in height and features fully removable wings. The line launches on October 15.

Motörhead was the first band to "really unite fans" from multiple different genres - Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich told Classic Rock magazine in an issue celebrating 40 years the release of Motörhead's hit album 'Ace of Spades'. Ulrich explained - "back in 1980, the music world was way more segregated than it is now. So if you were a heavy metal guy there was a particular look, a uniform. If you were a punk kid it was the same, or an alternative kid if you liked Joy Division or whatever. Everything was very segregated, especially in England. The one thing that was different about Motörhead was that they united people from all these different genres... So all these punks, skinheads, alternative kids and metal kids... everybody loved Motörhead".

Puerto Rican rapper and singer Bad Bunny performed outside on a moving, lit-up bus, which took him through the streets of New York on Sunday, Sept 20. At one point, he literally stopped traffic as fans chased after him, Hollywood Life reports. He streamed this event to his YouTube channel.

YoungBoy Never Broke Again landed on top of Billboard 200 with his new album 'Top', which garnered a total of 126,000 equivalent album units, Billboard reports. It's his third album in 11 months to reach the top of Billboard - '38 Baby 2' was the most selling album in the US in May 2020 and 'AI YoungBoy 2' in October 2019. Another new release in the Top 10 this week - Marilyn Manson scores its 10th top 10 album as 'We Are Chaos' bows at No. 8 with 31,000 equivalent album units earned.

Photos showing singer Brian Johnson and drummer Phil Rudd back in AC/DC were briefly posted on the AC/DC website last week before quickly being removed, accidentally confirming their comeback, Louder reports. They appear to have been taken during a video shoot and show drummer Phil Rudd playing with guitarist Stevie Young for the first time. Vocalist Brian Johnson is also shown - after he departed the group in 2016 following extensive hearing loss. The good news comes it was claimed that AC/DC have already recorded their next album.

Deftones are back in shape with their atmospheric and heavy newest single 'Genesis'; Aimee Mann covered Leonard Cohen’s ‘Avalanche’ for HBO’s true-crime docu-series 'I’ll Be Gone In The Dark', it's a changed song, richer, sang differently; Jamila Woods' 'Sula' is accompanied by an erotic video with the singer as the star of it; another "different" cover - Lykke Li plays Gloria Gaynor's disco anthem 'I Will Survive' as a haunting piano ballad.

Canadian rock musician Daniel Romano has released nine different albums this year. His latest, 'How Ill Thy World Is Ordered' is a baroque-pop/indie-rock album, and the first one released in a physical format since the live album 'OKAY WOW' from March (listen to 'How...' on Bandcamp; which PopMatters thinks highly of). Most of his releases this year have wrestled with specific genres, like punk, power-pop, or prog - for that one, a 22-minute song 'Forever Love's Fool', he got a hand from Danny Carey of Tool.

A new model for large scale festivals - Good Day Sunshine in Western Australia will feature a rotating stage and four distinct, individually ticketed areas for patrons divided by a fence, the Fader reports. The 5000-capacity fest is set to take place on October 31st. Performers will play in the single, rotating stage, while each separate area will be treated as its own 1250-capacity sealed-off event space, with no overlap of staff or patrons.

Transgender metalhead satanist Aria DiMezzo has won the Republican nomination for Cheshire County Sheriff in Keene, New Hampshire, in an attempt to prove the political paradox at hand, Loudwire reports. “I went into it expecting that I would lose the primary, because I didn’t think that so many voters were just… completely and totally oblivious about who they are voting for” she wrote in a blog post, but they did. She decided to run "because I oppose that very system, and the sheriff has the most hands-on ability in Cheshire County to oppose that system". Her official slogan is “F*** the Police". DiMezzo is the High Priestess of the Reformed Satanic Church, an anarchist, a metalhead who plays in the band FUD, and she’s using Trivium’s 'The Heart from Your Hate' is her official campaign song.

The Poland government is arguably one of the most conservative in Europe, recorded acts of homophobia happening on a weekly basis in the country, and there were also recorded incidents of police brutality. How systemic homophobia is can be read from the fact that a third of Polish towns have declared themselves “LGBT-free zones”. Guardian brings a story about Polish DJs and musicians fighting for the rights of the minority.

The seven siblings of the Kanneh-Mason family - Konya, Jeneba, Sheku, Braimah, Aminata, Mariatu, Isata - play classical music together, and now they've recorded their first album as a family, 'Carnival', which will be released by their record label Decca on 6 November. Written by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns, the musical suite of movements is dedicated to animals including lions, elephants and fish, because "we feel there should be more classical music aimed at children", as Isata says to the BBC.

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross won an Emmy for their score for HBO’s 'Watchmen', and now only lack a Tonny for EGOT status - they won an Academy Award for 'The Social Network' and a Grammy for their score for 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo', Deadline reports. British singer-songwriter Labrinth was honored for his song 'All for Us' from the finale of HBO’s 'Euphoria', Billboard reports. Composer Laura Karpman won her first prime-time Emmy in the documentary score category for 'Why We Hate', a six-part Discovery Channel series about hatred around the globe, Variety reports. All the nominees and winners - here.

“What you’re about to embark on will be the greatest adventure of your young life” - Bruce Springsteen told the Boston College Class of 2024 via a Zoom call from his New Jersey home studio as the featured speaker of the school’s annual 'First Year Academic Convocation'. Springsteen continued - “You can waste it, you can half-ass your way through it, or you can absorb every minute of what you’re experiencing, and come out on the other end an individual of expanded vision, of intellectual vigor, of spiritual character and grace, fully prepared to meet the world again on its own terms”. Students also had some questions for Springsteen...

The majority of concerts is moving online, and hopefully, the number (and production quality) of these will grow, so Spotify is adjusting. This week the streaming service had added all those virtual concerts to its "On Tour" listings. Spotify is working on it in partnership with Songkick.

The Beatles were falling apart as they were making their latest album 'Let It Be', and the new book 'The Beatles: Get Back' is going to tell the story of those last days, Guardian reports. It is drawn from over 120 hours of transcribed conversations from the band’s studio sessions. The book will be accompanied by Peter Jackson’s feature documentary of the same name. Both are coming out in August 2021. In related Beatles news, Canadian filmmaker Paul Saltzman has released a documentary 'Meeting The Beatles in India' about how he met the fab four at an ashram on the Ganges. Narrated by Morgan Freeman and produced by David Lynch, the film, among other things, contains rare images of the band taken by Saltzman. They are wistful vignettes of the rock stars in their prime, unguarded and relaxed, BBC reports.

Arcade Fire's Will Butler released 'Bethlehem', full of anger and energy, plenty of food in the video also; Still Corners' 'The Last Exit' is a big sounding simple folk-rock song; Tino Contreras is 96-year-old Mexican jazz veteran releasing an album full of new songs, 'El Sacrificio' is the promising teaser; pop-industrials Health released a haunting 'Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0'; Suuns combine noise and dance on 'Pray'; melodic doom metallers Fires in the Distance released their new album this week, 'Reflections in the Ice' is the stand-out track from it.

Kanye West has uploaded photos of his recording and publishing deals to Twitter, and is demanding to be released from his contracts, Variety reports. "I need every lawyer in the world to look at these," he told his followers, while referring to the music industry as "modern-day slavery". West says he won't release new music until he is released from his deals. PDF document of the contracts - here.

Steve Earle and his band The Dukes will be recording an album of songs by his son Justin Townes Earle, singer-songwriter who died in August, Rolling Stone reports. The album is set for a January release to coincide with what would've been Earle jr's 39th birthday. Proceeds from the album will go to a trust for Justin's daughter, Etta St. James Earle.

Stanley Crouch, the lauded and fiery jazz critic, has died aged 74, NPR says in a lengthy and enjoyable article about the controversial and charismatic figure from the jazz world. Jazz Times re-published Crouch's article about racism in jazz, one of his most-read and controversial pieces.

Luke Combs was awarded the album of the year accolade for 'What You See Is What You Get' at the Country Music Awards. He also won at the Male artist of the year category. Entertainer of the year award was split between Thomas Rhett and Carrie Underwood - the first ever entertainment tie, Female artist of the year awards went to Maren Morris, while Dan + Shay won at the Duo of the year category. Old Dominion are group of the year, Billboard reports. A small step toward equality and reason has happened - Mickey Guyton performed at the show, as the first black woman to do so. List of nominees and winners - here.

Madonna will co-write and direct a movie about her rise to fame, with the help of Oscar-winning 'Juno' screenwriter Diablo Cody, Entertainment Weekly reports. The script is expected to chart Madonna's rise from Michigan, to the slums of New York City, to global superstardom - via songs such as 'Like A Virgin' and 'Vogue'. “The focus of this film will always be music. Music has kept me going and art has kept me alive" - Madonna said in an announcement of the movie.

Sufjan Stevens says 'Sugar' is "about the desire for goodness and purity", and the hypnotics quality of the song makes a case for it; Amanda Ong is a singer-songwriter on the rise, her beautiful voice promises a lot - 'Leave Me Alone'; it's hardly a new song, but Brandi Carlile's version on 'Mad World' sang from the bottom of her lungs ads a new dimension to it; Slowthai's 'Feel Away' is, well, different - it's gentle and mellow, with a video of James Blake singing from rapper's uterus!; Death Valley Girls sing for love and joy on 'Under the Spell of Joy'; Small Bills is a new project, made of rapper Elucid and producer the Lasso, their first single 'Safehouse' goes from afro-beat to funk, from discomfort and uncertainty.

The plastic crown worn by the Notorious B.I.G. at his last photo shoot sold for $594,750 at Sotheby's auction, New York Post reports. The crown was originally purchased for $6 at a novelty store, and Brooklyn-based photographer Barron Claiborne made pictures of Biggie wearing the crown for the cover of Rap Pages magazine in 1997, just three days before rapper's death. Biggie's publisher Sean 'Puffy' Combs didn't like it, “he said it would make Biggie look like Burger King”. The auction also included love letters written by Tupac Shakur at 16 - a total of 22 handwritten letters sold for $75,600, BBC reports.

Resident Advisory and Guardian both report about the Beirut club-scene, or rather what's left of it after the big explosion. As much of Lebanon's nightlife was centred a short walk away from the port where the ammonium nitrate was stored, hundreds of bars, clubs and restaurants were hit hard by the blast. People's attitude towards music has also changed - Rend Shamma, 34, art director of nightclub Überhaus says “So many people say it’s hard to even listen to music now. The few times I’ve tried, it doesn’t feel good. I drive in silence”.

Ghost Cult magazine reached out to Facebook to find out what exactly do the new rules, coming in effect October 1, mean to FB video-streamers. In short, videos with music are okay, but not long interrupted videos, uploads of entire albums with no visual, or long music clips with no video, uninterrupted.

The documentary about Harlem’s historic Apollo Theater won the Emmy for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special, beating Spike Jonze’s 'Beastie Boys Story', Michelle Obama documentary 'Becoming', 'Laurel Canyon: A Place in Time', and 'The Great Hack', Pitchfork reports. Director Roger Ross Williams said in his acceptance speech “As Ta-Nehisi Coates says in the film, ‘Our music is so beautiful that even those with their boots on our necks can't help but sing along’". Emmys are being awarded until Saturday, ET Online will list all the winners.

Music manager and promoter David McLean is turning his career into film, 'Schemers', which tells the story of his early days attempting to book Iron Maiden. He shared some anecdotes with the Guardian: "I was used to promoting bands who turned up in a transit van but Iron Maiden turned up in a huge tour bus. Their tour manager said: 'Where’s the crew?' I went: 'The crew?' I ran outside, found four inebriated people standing nearby and went: 'That’s the crew'... The venue held 2,000 but we’d only sold 200 tickets because I’d forgotten to put up any posters. We took the band to the pub. When we came back, people were queuing round the block. It sold out on the door".

Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl has shared a video of a new theme song he wrote for the 19-year-old drummer-wunderkind Nandi Bushell. Grohl plays guitar, drums, and bass on the track, while his daughters (The Grohlettes) provide backing vocals - “She got the power/ She got the soul/ Gonna save the world with her rock and roll!”. Bushell reacted to the video saying “I can't believe Mr. Grohl wrote a song about me!?!".Tweet Fighters