U.S. residents have listened to an average of 11.1% more country since mid-March, and country music streaming climbed 22.4% in the final full week of May. Bloomberg explains: some have argued it is comfort food at a time when people are craving any form of succor; an executive at Pandora, the online radio service, noted country music is a perfect complement to drinking (alcohol sales have soared during the pandemic); country fans are learning to stream.

"This song represents frustration and aggression but also knowledge of self and eagerness to nullify in the burning hunger in my soul" - Cambatta says about his new song 'Bones of Osiris'; Kenyan rapper MC Yallah has teamed up with Irish DJ and producer Eomac for a new EP 'Mama Waliwamanyii', a wild and groovy thing; Starlight Girls released a new EP 'Entitled' of goth/indie.

The Black Music Coalition, a newly formed organization comprised of Black music industry executives from the UK, have published an open letter calling for immediate action to end systemic racism within the music industry, IQ Magazine reports. The signatories made five requests in the open letter: mandatory anti-racism and unconscious bias training for all non-Black staff; setting aside an amount of money each year to support Black organisations and projects; career development opportunities for Black staff and addressing the lack of Black staff in senior positions; replacing the term ‘urban music’ with ‘Black music’; establishing a task force that reviews the company’s diversity and equality goals.

An artificial intelligence bot was programmed to take in all of Metallica's lyrics using Markov Chain (a computer model for a certain type of probability), and wrote an old school Metallica-styled song 'Deliverance Rides', Loudwire reports. YouTuber Funk Turkey wrote the music for it, in style on '...And Justice For All' and 'Black Album', and sang the lyrics, here's some: "I can’t believe the death of day/The dark of wretched pain/Where I see the one thousand deaths/Never free in vain".

Iconic comedy duo released the official trailer for their new movie 'Bill & Ted Face the Music', and Arcade Fire's Win Butler can be seen in that short clip playing a "member of the future council". He's seen for a few moments wearing a wide-brimmed hat, and he doesn't speak, which all makes him look kinda funny. 'Bill & Ted Face the Music' hits theaters on August 21st. The movie follows now-middle-aged William “Bill” S. Preston, Esq. (Alex Winter) and Theodore “Ted” Logan (Keanu Reeves) as they’re tasked with penning an original song to save the world.

WiZink Center in the Spanish capital, Madrid, announced they have confirmed several artists for paid livestreamed concerts that will be performed before at least some fans inside the building, Pollstar reports. The performance will be recorded with at least six television cameras, usually intended for sporting events — including stationary cameras, polecams and rail cams — that offer different perspectives of what is happening on stage. Concert industry publication also reports about recovery plans for live music sectors in Australia and New Zealand. Live Performance Australia unveiled June 4 an ambitious A$345 million plan to restart and rebuild the industry. New Zealand’s live sector applauded the government’s new NZ$175 million arts & music COVID-19 recovery package.

OneZero has an amazing article about scammers who are gaming Spotify with fake artist features, in order to inflate their Spotify streaming numbers. This is how it works: First, the scammer uploads a song to Spotify using a third-party site. When filling out the track’s information, they add a popular artist as “featured” (when they are, in fact, not involved with the song at all). The last step is automatic - Spotify’s algorithm places the song in prime spots across the platform. The goal: to rack up streams and money, of course.

The Dalai Lama has announced 'Inner World', an album of teachings and mantras set to music by the famous sitar player Anoushka Shankar. The 11-track album arrives July 6, which is also the Dalai Lama’s 85th birthday. The spiritual leader told Associated Press music can help people in a way that he can’t - "it can transcend differences and return us to our true nature and our good-heartedness”. Proceeds from 'Inner World' will benefit the Mind & Life Institute as well as Social, Emotional and Ethical Learning.

Pitchfork has gathered videos that show the many ways that music is being used in protests against police brutality and racism across the USA and around the world; watch here. In similar news, NPR made a partial record of music released in the past week answering this historic moment.

Wuhan is frequently cited as China’s punk rock capital, as it was the COVID-19 capital of the world at the start of the year. Now the quarantine is over in the central China region, but the concerts remain banned. The Diplomat reports from the city about music venues that don't play music, bands that aren't playing, not even writing music - seemingly quarantine isn't inspiring, it's just bleak...

Independent Brooklyn metal club Saint Vitus started a COVID-19 relief on Kickstarter, raising 12 times more than they asked for, according to Rolling Stone. “Saint Vitus Stays Home: Help beloved Brooklyn venue & metal bar Saint Vitus survive the COVID-19 closure” campaign listed a slew of rewards for potential donors, ranging from $5 stickers and $30 limited-edition tees to $75 signed photos and $100 drum lessons with Thursday’s Tucker Rule; top donors could snag a year’s worth of free shows. The campaign’s goal was set at $15,000, but by the end of campaign on Saturday, June 6 Saint Vitus had raised over $130,000.

Cherie Hu has made a list of all the board members and C-Suite executives across the top three record labels (Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment) and their biggest imprints, as well as the top two concert promoters (Live Nation and AEG), to see what is the percentage of Black people among them. There are 61 board members and C-Suite executives on her list. 53 of them are white, and only five of them - or 8% of the total - are Black: Jon Platt (Sony), Nadia Rawlinson (Live Nation), Maverick Carter (Live Nation), Jeffrey Harleston (Universal), and Kevin McDowell (AEG), Hu wrote on her Music & Water blog. She then expanded her scope to include President and Executive Vice President (EVP) roles and label imprints as well, and the percentage improved slightly - the total number of executives increased to 121 people. 92 of them are white, while 22 (around 18% of the total) are Black.

MusicMap blog has announced that they have now written about independent artists from every single country on the planet. To celebrate becoming the first music site to achieve the feat of featuring all 195 independent sovereign nations in the world, they've put together a playlist containing a track from every one of them, in alphabetical order from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. There's Turkish psychedelia, Ugandan footwork, Vincy dancehall and Micronesian hip-hop there.

Pussy Riot have released ‘1312’, “an international anthem against police brutality”, inspired by the 2019 protesters in Chile and released in solidarity with people across the world protesting the murder of George Floyd. Pussy Riot are joined here by Argentinian artists Parcas, Dillom, and Muerejoven, in a call to arms for those who are showing extreme bravery and strength in the face of increasingly violent abuse by police officers. The song is accompanied by an animated video from Vladimir Storm. They have also released a manifesto against police violence.

Lady Gaga held a speech about Black Lives Matter movement and protests for graduates during YouTube’s virtual “Dear Class of 2020" commencement celebration, Billboard reports. "You are watching what is a pivotal moment in this [country’s] evolution...change will happen and it will be for the better” - Lady Gaga told the graduates. But it won't happen by itself - "the people who are going to make this change happen are listening to this speech right now. You are the seeds that will grow into a new and different forest that is far more beautiful [than the one we live in right now]”.

One of the most powerful record labels in the US, Republic Records will stop using the word "urban" to describe music of black origin. The company, which is home to Drake, Ariana Grande, The Weeknd, Nicki Minaj, Post Malone and Taylor Swift, says it will no longer use the term to describe "departments, employee titles and music genres". "We encourage the rest of the music industry to follow suit," it added. Republic didn't announce any other term to replace it with. The term is often considered to be a generalisation that marginalizes music by black artists.

Fans of K-pop superstars BTS have matched a $1m donation by the group to the Black Lives Matter movement, CBS reports. On Saturday Bit Hit Entertainment, which manages BTS, said the band had donated $1m to the Black Lives Matter movement. Once word got out BTS fans, who call themselves the ARMY, started to trend the hashtag #MatchAMillion on Twitter, to raise the same amount again. Within the first 24 hours the collection had passed $817,000.

Lady Gaga scores her sixth No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 with the chart-topping debut of 'Chromatica', sold in 274,000 equivalent album units, the biggest week for any album by a woman in 2020, although she ceased promotion due to nationwide unrest over George Floyd's death, Billboard reports. 'Chromatica' album sales comprise 205,000, SEA units total 65,000 (equating to 87.16 million on-demand streams of the set’s tracks in the week ending June 4) and TEA units equal a little more than 4,000. Also new at the top 10 on Billboard 200 are Jimmy Buffet who landed at No. 2 with 'Life on the Flip Side' - earned 75,000 equivalent album units, and Run The Jewels with 'RTJ40, bowing at No. 10 - 38,000 equivalent album units earned.

Lady Gaga's new album 'Chromatica' has entered the UK charts at number one, after outselling the rest of the top 10 combined. The record sold 53,000 copies, the biggest opening week of the year so far. According to the Official Charts Company, 'Chromatica' was the week's most popular album in every format - physical, streaming, and downloads - as well as the year's fastest-seller on vinyl, with 8,500 copies sold.

Mr. Bungle released their 1st recorded music since 1999, an Exploited cover 'USA', for charity; Wiley released his last album this weekend, 'Double Dragon' is the club banger from it; Bob Mould's new 'American Crisis' title says it all; Thurston Moore released 'Strawberry Moon', a new nine-minute post-rocky instrumental; Meek Mill's 'Otherside of America' is a melancholic protest song.

Universal Music Group has established a $25 million “Change Fund” that will be invested across six areas of focus, including aid/charitable giving, global, internal/institutional change, legislative/public policy, partners and programming/curation, Billboard reports. Spotify has pledged to match $10 million in donations, after being called out by its employers, and give $1 million worth of advertising to social justice groups, Digital Music News reports. Blood Orange's Dev Hynes helped raise $500,000 in just two days, with a limited edition t-shirt, Uproxx reports.

The UK’s first permitted, socially distanced rave has been held in a forest near Nottingham, featuring sets by Latmun, Ben Sterling and Dafs, Mixmag reports. Everyone in attendance had to keep two metres apart at all times – save for those who live together – so as to comply with the government’s health and safety guidelines during the coronavirus pandemic. 750 people signed up to attend, but only 40 were allowed to the rave. The party was hosted as part of a documentary film exploring socially distanced events in Britain and how the hospitality industry might adapt to new restrictions.

Guardian's Alexis Petridis might not especially like Sweet, but he does see the influence British glam-rock band had: "British punk was staffed largely by people who had grown up in front of the glam-era TOTP, underlined when the Damned covered Ballroom Blitz. Moreover, they were a huge influence on 80s metal: Axl Rose claimed they were his favourite band, Def Leppard covered 'Hell Raiser' and 'Action', the nascent Mötley Crüe attempted to seek them out for career advice. You didn’t have to examine hair metal too hard to see the Sweet’s ghost, you just had to look at the photos: straight boys covered in makeup, possessed by a desire to shock, every one of them metaphorically Steve Priest’s offspring"

Death Row Records is now on Bandcamp, which means Dr. Dre's 'The Chronic' is on Bandcamp, as is Snoop Dogg's 'Doggystyle', 2Pac's 'All Eyes On Me', Tha Dogg Pound's 'Dogg Food', and more - check it out all here. The release is just in time for this month's Bandcamp First Fridays fundraiser, Exclaim reports. Death Row was bought by eOne music in 2013, and then acquired by toy company Hasbro when Hasbro bought eOne for $3.8 billion last year.

Kanye West has donated $2 million to support the families of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor - three unarmed African-Americans recently killed by police officers or a former police officer. West also set up a 529 education plan to cover the full college tuition for George Floyd's 6-year-old daughter Gianna Floyd, All Hip Hop reports. West was also seen joining protestors in the streets of Chicago.

Vice suggests a handful of ways to get involved in the fight for racial justice in the music industry. One way is to purchase music and merch directly from Black artists and Black-owned labels (especially today Friday, June 5, on Bandcamp when the platform is once again waiving their revenue share on all merch and music purchases made on the site; DJ Techtools made a spreadsheet of 1,000-plus black artists and producers whose work you might consider buying). Another is reading and sharing works of Black journalists. A broader action music lovers can undertake is lending their voice to the wider fight for fair pay in the recorded music industry. The Movement for Black Lives suggests ways to help as well.

Warner Music Group Corp. raised $1.925 billion with the offering of 77 million shares in its IPO this week, in the biggest U.S. listing so far in 2020, Reuters reports. The stock opened at $27 and extended gains in early trading to $28.75, gained more than 20% in their debut on Wednesday, and rose another 5% Thursday on their second day of trading, Market Watch reports. Billionaire Len Blavatnik still owns the vast majority of Warner, having bought the company in 2011 for $3.3 billion in a highly risky investment. Warner and Blavatnik have announced a $100 million fund to support charitable causes related to the music industry, social justice, and campaigns against violence and racism, Variety reports.

Taste of Country has pointed out to a deeply symbolic and interesting Instagram post by a country music fan Rachel Berry, who asked "Before you buy tickets to a show, have you ever looked up the name of the town/city and then 'racism'? I have". The 28-year-old New Jersey resident added "there have been a few shows that I have had to pass on because the first 2 or 3 links that popped up were about acts of racism that have happened there".

The photo of Kurt Cobain's head among dolls and in front of wilted flowers "distilled what this work is about for me: trying to interpret as closely as I can who my subject is, while at the same time staying loyal to my point of view. Marrying those two things is always the starting point" -  Mark Seliger told Guardian about his favorite photo. This shot is on sale as part of Christie's online auction in aid of charities combatting Covid-19 (bids close on 12 June), along with photos of Kendrick Lamar, Billie Eilish, Johnny Cash, U2, Jennifer Lopez...

The Weeknd, Lizzo and John Legend have signed an open letter calling for police budgets to be cut following the death of George Floyd, All Hip Hop reports. The open letter was launched by Patrisse Cullors, one of the co-founders of Black Lives Matter and a founding member of the Movement 4 Black Lives (M4BL) and calls for local officials to cut police spending and budgets and instead increase spending on health care, education and community programs.