Berlin-based vocalist and producer Lyra Pramuk released her debut album 'Fountain' of "futuristic folk music" this year, made entirely with her own voice. Fact Magazine visited her in her studio to see how she does it.
Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, Taylor Swift and Janelle Monáe will be among those joining “Dear Class of 2020”, a virtual commencement ceremony for this year’s quarantined graduates, Deadline reports. Former American president Barack Obama and Michelle Obama are delivering commencement addresses, alongside K-pop powerhouse BTS, Lady Gaga, and more. Live programming event will also feature guest appearances by Alicia Keys, Kelly Rowland, Demi Lovato, Billy Porter, Lizzo, Camila Cabello, Chloe x Halle, Maluma, CNCO, Doja Cat, FINNEAS, Megan Thee Stallion and more. It will be livestreamed on YouTube on Saturday, June 6 (starting at 3 p.m. Harvard time, 8 p.m. Cambridge time, 4 a.m. on Sunday Tohoku University time). YouTube expects it to last a few hours.
Australian painter Lushsux was savagely beaten as he attempted to paint another one of his famous murals of 50 Cent. Lush became famous by merging images of 50 Cent as Taylor Swift, Mike Pence and President Donald Trump (his Instagram profile). 50 Cent didn't really like it, or get it, so he called on for somebody to beat Lushsux up over his paintings, Complex reports. "Unfortunately, some 6 or 7 smoothebrains at one time on the street already put me in hospital already this month because of this s##t" Lushsux said. He adds this attack won't stop him "me doing what 99.8% of what everyone else seems to for the most part get a hearty chuckle out of".
In the first two months of social distancing, American listeners largely gravitated toward the acoustic genres - singer-songwriter classics and country, Rolling Stone reports. Streaming data show that, in general, Americans have gravitated away from electric and electronic genres. Streams for pop fell 16 percent, dance music streams fell 11 percent, hip-hop decreased 15 percent, hard rock and metal fell 10 percent, while arena rock tumbled 23 percent. Country music has seen an 8 percent growth in streams, singer-songwriter music was up 8 percent, soft rock was up 5 percent, and roots rock 4 percent. In general, on-demand audio streams in the U.S. dipped eight percent from March 13th through May 7th compared with the previous two months.
Webby Awards winners were announced yesterday, among them: Cardi B for fashion & lifestyle, Lil Nas X for his video 'Panini', Dolly Parton for her mini-series 'America', Rihanna for her Fenty Beauty brand, Swizz Beats + Timbaland for the Verzuz battles on Instagram Live, Celine Dion for her innovation on social media. They were honored during an online celebration dubbed 'WFH: Webby From Home', which took place on Tuesday at WebbyAwards.com. The Webbys said this year's event is dedicated to "honoring outstanding individuals and organizations who are using the Internet in response to the incredible difficulties imposed by the coronavirus pandemic." Those Special Achievement honorees include D-Nice for his creation #ClubQuarantine, and Miley Cyrus for the creation of her Instagram Live show 'Bright Minded: Live With Miley'.
A 29-year-old Seoul man visited five clubs and bars in a Seoul neighborhood on a busy weekend night and was later tested positive for COVID-19. After that incident, 119 new infections have been traced back to the 29-year-old, Korean authorities have announced. Additional 5,517 fellow clubgoers have been contacted in the process. A total of more than 11,000 people had been in the general area on the night in question, Statista.com reports.
'So You Won’t Forget' is a new Khruangbin song from their forthcoming album 'Mordechai', slightly less world music, slightly more funk, a summer breeze song; Compton rapper Problem's 'Janet Freestyle' is a tribute to his friend Nipsey Hussle, it samples Janet Jackson, and features jazz musician/Kendrick Lamar collaborator Terrace Martin; Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante and Suicidal Tendencies bassist Ra Diaz covered Billie Eilish's 'Bad Guy' - that would have happened had her brother been a metalhead; metalcore outfit Misery Signals play tense and dense on 'The Tempest'; American Trappist go psych-rocky on 'Losing My Grip'; Slowthai is back with yet another new song, 'BB (BodyBag)', he's still pretty much angry; Apollo Brown & Che’ Noir feature Black Thought on soul-heavy 'Hustle Don’t Give'; dark-pop newcomer Daine sounds like a polished Billie Eilish on her debut single 'Picking Flowers'.
Travis McCready performed on Monday in a former Masonic Temple in Arkansas, in a first live concert in America since the pandemic stopped live shows in March. Fans had to have their temperatures taken and wear masks for the show, and they were required to buy seats in clusters, or what promoters call “fan pods”. Dave Poe, a New York-based concert promoter and a co-founder of the Independent Promoter Alliance, called Monday night’s event “a great jump-start to the industry”. Daniel Neathery, 33, had to buy six tickets (at $20 a pop), an entire fan pod, even though he came alone, but - “for me, it was worth it to have some normalcy”. New York Times reports from the Temple.
Sci-fi rockers Devo shared an online store featuring coronavirus merchandise. Offerings include themed face masks and Devo’s iconic red energy dome hats with an attached clear plastic face protector. The band explains: "Once the dome was placed on your head it recycled the electrical energy that regularly escapes from your brain. People of course laughed. Now the dome is no longer a source of controversy or derision. Its popularity is a sort of proof that De-evolution is real!".
It will not be possible to operate nightclubs, bars and restaurants while enforcing social distancing measures without government support, a survey of 130 UK businesses about the viability of reopening while social distancing measures continue has shown. Owners of "night time" establishments expect to be able to operate from 40-43% of their businesses' capacity once the lockdown has been lifted, Quietus reports. If this is the case, 63.8% of respondents believe that their businesses will not be financially viable.
21-year-old Just Sam was crowned American Idol's 18th winner, the first (and hopefully, the last) in lockdown. She heard the news while clutching an iPad that was connected to a call with her grandmother, who brought her up, Washington Post reports. Just Sam captured viewers' hearts with soul-stirring vocals, her personality, and her emotional back story - with mother in prison, and adopted by her grandmother, she earned money singing in the subway. She started her American Idol path by bursting into tears...
User-centric payout is a different way of distributing streaming royalties to the current ‘pro-rata’ system. MusicAlly explains: If an artist (Moses Sumney, say) got 1% of the streams in that period, then his rightsholders get 1% of the royalties pool. But what that also means is essentially 1% of the royalties generated by every individual subscriber are going to Moses Sumney’s music, even if they didn’t listen to him at all. In user-centric model, for each listener, the royalties portion of their subscription is divided only among the rightsholders of the artists they listen to. If they’re a hardcore metaller, folk or classical fan, that’s where the royalties go. If they only listen to Moses Sumney, his music secures 100% of the loot. Whether smaller artists make more money and big artists make less in this system is not always clear.
Nav landed in the top spot of Billboard 200 chart with his third studio effort 'Good Intentions', Billboard reports. It earned 135,000 equivalent album units, of which 62,000 were from streaming, and 73,000 came in the form of album sales that were almost entirely driven by bundles that included his latest project in its merch offerings. Kehlani tallies her highest charting and best week ever in units earned, as 'It Was Good Until It Wasn’t starts' at No. 2 (83,000 units), Lil Durk’s 'Just Cause Y’all Waited 2' debuts at No. 5 (57,000) and Bad Bunny’s surprise release 'Las Que No Iban a Salir' enters at No. 7 (42,000).
BBC's article on Russian trap rapper Plinofficial reads like a crime story - musician, real name Maksim Boiko, originally from northern Siberia, started as a trap rapper, trying to emulate hit North-American idols flashing bundles of cash and driving Mercedes, although he wasn't nearly that successful. FBI might have an answer to that - they believe that Boiko took up computer and banking fraud. The FBI found Boiko's email on crypto-currency exchange BTC-e's list, linked to a client account for "gangass". In the record of grounds for his arrest, it says gangass invested $388,000 and withdrew 136 bitcoins. The FBI believes the Russian was an intermediary in chains used in the legalisation of money stolen from banks all around the world.
Jason Isbell and his wife/bandmate Amanda Shires celebrated the release of their new album 'Reunions' with a livestreamed release show from Brooklyn Bowl Nashville. The venue was empty, but the screens above the lanes in Brooklyn Bowl were showing fans watching, and they could be heard in-between songs. Fans were happy and excited to watch the two play, and the pair seemed touched by the warm acceptance by the audience. Everybody was apart, but they really were a collective for that one hour...
Phil May, the frontman of The Pretty Things, has died aged 75 after suffering complications from emergency hip surgery, following a bicycle accident. The Pretty Things' 1968 album 'SF Sorrow' is credited as one of the first real rock opera concept albums. They were cited as an influence by a wide range of artists from David Bowie (wrote May’s phone number in his address book under the name “God”) to Jimi Hendrix to Kasabian. "They were ahead of their time, descending into chaotic, free-form, feedback-laden improvisation onstage years before the Velvet Underground or the early Pink Floyd made it their trademark" - Alexis Petridis wrote.
BBC viewers have selected Abba's 'Waterloo' as the greatest Eurovision song of all time. The Swedish foursome won it in 1974 in Brighton, and the track went on to sell nearly 6m copies. This year's competition was cancelled in March amid the coronavirus pandemic. None of the 2020 songs will be carried over to next year. Instead, countries will select new entrants for the 2021 contest.
German photographer Astrid Kirchherr, whose early shots of The Beatles helped turn them into icons, has died aged 81, Zeit and NPR report. Kirchherr first came across the band when she visited a nightclub in her native Hamburg where they were playing. "My whole life changed in a couple of minutes. All I wanted was to be with them and to know them" - she later told Beatles biographer Bob Spitz. She took the first photo of the band in Hamburg in 1960, and is credited with helping develop their visual style. She began dating Stuart Sutcliffe, the original bassist in the band, and even cut his hair into the famous mop top style that the group came to be associated with. Kirchherr remained friends with the band after Sutcliffe's death and photographed them throughout the 1960s. Her death was announced by Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn, who said "her gift to the Beatles was immeasurable". Tributes are pouring in.
The Coloring Sessions is an awesome way to relax while doing something fulfilling. The Sessions offers outlines of album covers - they "just" need to be colored. Why? - "to reduce stress and anxieties, help with focus and increase happiness levels".
Amazon is offering three months of free access to Amazon Music Unlimited - free trial gives users access to tens of millions of songs in MP3 quality, with no ads and unlimited skips. Once three months are up, Amazon Music Unlimited is $9.99 a month.
Britain’s hospital radio stations are one of the less well-known features of its health system: tiny operations, staffed by volunteers, who mostly play patient requests. Patients can normally listen to the shows, which are heavy on chart music and old hits, using headphones connected to an entertainment unit beside their beds. There are still over 200 such stations, and some claim they have found themselves more useful than ever during the pandemic, providing a human connection to patients who would otherwise be alone, New York Times reports.
Spotify has officially launched new Group Session feature, which allows multiple people to control the same playlist in real time, The Verge reports. The feature can accommodate up to 100 users, and hey all have to be in the same location. To use the feature, the “host” will tap the Connect menu in the bottom-left corner of their Play screen, then share with their “guests” the scannable code that appears. The guests then join the session by scanning the host’s code. Then, using Spotify’s built-in controls, they’re able to pause, play, skip and select tracks on the queue and add choices of their own to be played next.
Musicians and songwriters in the UK received a record amount of money last year - £810m, a rise of 8.7% compared to the previous year, BBC reports. PRS for Music, the body that makes sure 145,000 songwriters, composers and publishers in the UK are paid when their music is played or performed around the world, is warning, however, that the Covid-19 would result in an "inevitable decline" in 2020 and 2021.
"If you want to record, just hit record. It’s not about equipment. For the Beck record we had nothing, just inspiration” - Calvin Johnson, of K Records told Guardian about recording albums in his basement. One of the latest bedroom pop artists is 21-year-old Girl in Red, who is ratcheting up hundreds of millions of streams with indie-pop tracks made in her bedroom. Everybody is locked down now due to the pandemic, so everybody can be a music producer, the G argues.
Independent music festivals in Britain are at risk of collapsing after coronavirus forced many to cancel their 2020 editions, a new report by the Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) has warned. Some 92% of AIF members - including Gloucestershire’s 2000trees, London’s Meltdown and Sheffield’s Tramlines - warn they face ruinous costs as a result of cancelled events, with the vast majority (98.5%) not covered by insurance for cancellation as a result of coronavirus, the Guardian reports.
MLB team the Texas Rangers have announced the largest-scale U.S. drive-in concert series yet, Concert In Your Car. The concerts will take place in the parking lot of Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. Not the biggest music stars, but that's not the point right now: Eli Young Band are about to play on 6/4, Whiskey Mykers on 6/5, Pat Green on 6/6, and Josh Abbott Band & Kevin Fowler on 6/7. Strict social distancing rules will be applied. Some trouble with week’s Travis McCready concert scheduled to take place this Friday, May 15, in Fort Smith, Arkansas, KFSM 5News reports. Governor Asa Hutchinson issued cease & desist order, because McCready is to soon - Hutchinson has given the okay for live events to return on the following Monday, the 18th.
The "brave" people of Welch NHS have made an "extraordinary" rendition of 'Bridge Over Troubled Water', song's author Paul Simon has said. Medics, construction workers and council staff were filmed for the performance at the temporary coronavirus field hospital built in the north Wales resort of Llandudno.
Rihanna has made her debut appearance on The Sunday Times Rich List of UK's richest musicians, with an estimated fortune of £468 million. She claims the third place, just above Elton John and Mick Jagger, and below Andrew Lloyd Webber and Paul McCartney. Although she's successful musician, Rihanna's earnings are largely due to the Fenty Beauty cosmetics brand, where her reported 15% stake is worth £351m. Rihanna's appearance on the list is somewhat a surprise, because very few people knew she was living in London. The youngest on the list is Ed Sheeran with an estimated net worth of £200m.
Conspiracy theories have become, in the last 20-ish years, the exact opposite of what they started as - a tool to blur the truth. 'Wind of Change' podcast by the Pineapple Street Studios, is great if you take it less as a serious theory, and more as an entertaining listen. So, the theory is this - the famous metal ballad 'Wind of Change' wasn't actually written by the Scorpions, the real authors are - the CIA! The man behind the podcast is best-selling author and New Yorker investigative journalist Patrick Radden Keefe, who explores a rumor he heard from a source within the CIA itself. Over the course of the miniseries, Keefe delves into a secret history of propaganda hidden in pop music, talking to former CIA officers and music industry legends, as well as doing on-the-ground reporting in four countries to find out if this really was another example of a U.S. government attempt at soft power through pop culture. Listen to the miniseries here. Scorpions frontman Klaus Meine is seemingly amused by the idea: “After all these year, to hear a story like this is really something. I’ve heard stories connected with 'Wind Of Change', but the CIA? It's an interesting story, definitely. It's a good idea for a movie. That would be cool". Vulture says the podcast is a "thrilling ride".
The 1959 Martin D-18E guitar used by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain during the band’s famous MTV Unplugged in New York concert is for sale at an auction, with a starting estimate of $1m, CNN reports. The guitar featured in the grunge group’s performance in November 1993, five months before Cobain’s death at the age of 27. His guitar comes with the original hard-shell case, with three baggage claim ticket stubs still attached to the handle, along with an Alaska Airlines sticker affixed to the case. The storage compartment contains Cobain’s half-used pack of guitar strings, picks and a suede “stash bag”.
