Due to the rise of COVID-19, in-person songwriting sessions have been largely brought to a halt, but still, people are making songs, over Zoom or FaceTime or Google Hangouts. Not everybody likes it, some miss direct human-to-human interaction, there are technical difficulties (glitches, delays in sound transfer etc.), but it's a new normal now. Rolling Stone, however, points out one important thing - everyone can collaborate with anybody, no matter where they are. "It evens the playing field - anyone can be anywhere" - as Luke Laird, Kacey Musgraves, and Eric Church songwriter said.

Adult-emo come-backers American Football are headlining a virtual festival Nether Meant in video-game Minecraft on Saturday, April 11 (at 6 p.m. New York time, midnight Berlin time, 7 a.m. on Sunday Tokyo time). The fest takes place in a fictional space called Elsewither, which is based on the Brooklyn venue Elsewhere, NME reports. American Football are joined by Anamanaguchi, Baths, and HANA. AM's Mike Kinsella said “I’m looking forward to (finally) being able to prove to my 7-year-old son that I do, indeed, have a job”. People can watch within the game, or on Twitch. They’re also selling VIP passes to the concert, which offers “special VIP areas in-game” and in-game merch. Proceeds from the VIP passes will go to Good360’s COVID–19 relief efforts.

Approximately 40,000 masks will go to Tennessee, 50,000 to Rikers Island in New York, and 5,000 to Parchman in Mississippi. Additionally, 2,500 masks were sent to Rikers Island's medical facility, CBS reports. The rappers' donation will help protect staff and inmates from the spread of COVID-19, which has increased significantly in correctional facilities because prisoners live in crowded quarters and are unable to practice social distancing. Last week, rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine - who suffers from chronic asthma, putting him at increased risk for catching the virus - was released from jail and will serve the remaining four months of his sentence under home confinement.

Pantera is promoting social distancing in the shadow of coronavirus pandemic with a limited edition of 'Vulgar Display of Power'-styled shirt bearing the 'Walk' lyric, "Be yourself, by yourself, stay away from me". The iconic album art has been reworked to express precautions currently being taken to limit the spread of the coronavirus, Loudwire reports. Pantera's new T-shirt will ship in about three weeks and is selling for $30 with 40 percent of the proceeds being donated to the MusiCares Covid-19 Relief Fund to aid musical artists impacted by the coronavirus.

Billy McFarland is serving a six-year prison sentence for wire fraud in relation to his ill-fated April 2017 Bahamas-based music Fyre Festival, and he is starting a new endeavor from inside prison: crowd-funding money for other inmates to be able to call their loved ones during these trying times. As he's told the New York Post, he hopes his initiative called Project-315 ($3.15 is the standard cost for a 15-minute prison phone call) will bring together and connect in-need inmates and their families who are affected by coronavirus by paying for calls "for as many incarcerated people across the country as possible". He swears it's no scam - “All the money that’s coming in is going directly to the initiative. I’m not on any of the bank accounts or documents and I don’t have access to any of the funds”.

Megadeth bassist and co-founder David Ellefson has launched the “School’s Out” initiative through Youth Music Foundation, to provide music lessons and mentoring via Skype from rock and metal musicians to kids who can’t participate in school activities because of coronavirus restrictions, Loudwire reports. Musicians participating as instructors include David Ellefson, Dirk Verbeuren, and Kiko Loureiro of Megadeth; Frank Bello of Anthrax; Jimmy DeGrasso of Alice Cooper, formerly of Megadeth; Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal of Sons of Apollo, formerly of Guns N’ Roses; Chris Kael of Five Finger Death Punch; Chad Szeliga of Black Star Riders and Walking with Lions; Phil Demmel, formerly of Machine Head; Dave McClain of Sacred Reich, formerly of Machine Head; Clint Lowery of Sevendust; Nita Strauss of Alice Cooper; Brandan Schieppatti of Bleeding Through; Thom Hazaert of Ellefson; Alex Snowden and Sydney Dolezal of Doll Skin; Ra Diaz of Suicidal Tendencies; Shani Kimelman of Cirque Du Soleil MJ ONE; Marc Rizzo of Soulfly and Cavalera Conspiracy; Danny Cooksey; Jeff Duncan of Armored Saint; Rusty Cooley of Day of Reckoning; Ra Diaz of Suicidal Tendencies; Shani Kimelman of Cirque Du Soleil MJ ONE, and more. Prospective students can apply here.

On Tuesday evening, for six hours, more than 250 artists from around the world will gather for an epic online performance of late composer Pauline Oliveros' 'The Lunar Opera: Deep Listening For _Tunes', an open-form opera in which the enlisted performers create their own characters, movements and sound based on sonic cues known only to themselves, LA Times reports. For this occasion the production is called Full Pink Moon: Opera Povera in Quarantine, it's free, but the viewers can also choose to donate to help cover production costs. It's on here, starting at 5 p.m. Los Angeles time, 1 a.m. (Wednesday) London time, 8 a.m. Beijing time.

The Weeknd's 'After Hours' remains atop the Billboard 200 in its second week on the charts with 138,000 equivalent album units, while 6 new albums enter the Top 10, as Billboard reports. Australian pop-rock band 5 Seconds of Summer scores its fifth top 10 album on the Billboard 200 chart as 'Calm' surges from No. 62 to No. 2 with 133,000 equivalent album units (up 1,159%). UK pop singer Dua Lipa lands her first top 10 album, as her second effort, 'Future Nostalgia', debuts at No. 4 with 66,000 equivalent album units earned. Grunge veterans Pearl Jam return to the Billboard 200 with their first studio album since 2013, as 'Gigaton' jumps in at No. 5 with 63,000 equivalent album units earned (14,000 copies sold on vinyl, the second-largest week on vinyl for a 2020 release). Canadian r'n'b singer PartyNextDoor lands at No. 8 with 50,000 equivalent album units earned with 'PartyMobile'. American rapper Joyner Lucas makes his chart debut with his first studio album, 'ADHD' selling in 39,000 equivalent album units, enough for No. 10 spot.

Madonna has donated $1 million to Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help fund research into creating a coronavirus vaccine. Pink, who recovered from coronavirus just recently, has pledged $500,000 to Philadelphia’s Temple University Hospital Fund, and $500,000 to the City of Los Angeles Mayor’s Emergency COVID-19 Crisis Fund. Metallica's charitable foundation, All Within My Hands, has announced four grants totaling $350,000 to Feeding America, Direct Relief, Crew Nation and the USBG National Charity Foundation. R'n'b singer H.E.R. has provided her team with money to support them over the coming months.

'Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America' by the 1975 and Phoebe Bridgers is just great (and a wee bit closer to what she usually does); 'Keep it Chill! (In the East Vill)' is a witty and thoughtful and hopeful new song by the singer and comic Jeffrey Lewis; instrumental trio GoGo Penguin shared their beautiful and meditative 'Kora'; the indie-star of the moment Waxahatchee covered Caroline Polachek's 'So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings'; Orville Peck released his first Columbia song 'Summertime' about "biding your time and staying hopeful"; Andrew Bird's 'Capital Crimes' touches the issue of giving IQ tests to death row inmates, whose life was spared if they scored below 70; The Tallest Man on Earth beautifully, of course, plays and sings the folk song 'Mole in the Ground'; Purity Ring's 'I Like the Devil' is piano-driven, dark electro-pop with a great video (below); 'Chosen Family' by Rina Sawayama is a grandiose ballad, which is rarely a good direction, but in this case it's a nice, catchy song with an important message; remember rap-metal? - Kool Keith and metal duo Thetan have a new take on it, with dark and slow 'Let's Take a Trip'; Thao and the Get Down Stay Down shared a psychedelic alter-pop song 'Phenom' with a video shot entirely within Zoom; 'Rider' is lush and dramatic, but Skylar Gudasz’s voice would be more than enough to dedicate two minutes for her new song; black metal turned trip hop turned synthpop band Ulver shared their new song 'Little Boy', presumably about the atomic bomb; "the drums and the bassline and the rhodes and the synths and the horns and the strings!!!" - RJD2 said about his new song '20 Grand Palace', and he's right.

Billboard is reporting about companies like Side Door, Looped, and StageIt trying to build online streaming business. Live event platform Side Door announced the launch of its ticketed private, streaming events with tickets ranging from $5-$35. Looped started as a virtual meet-and-greet platform between artists and fans until Wednesday, when the platform enabled those same artists to invite their super fans to ticketed livestreaming shows. Tickets typically range from $5-$30. Online venue StageIt has been in the business of monetizing livestreams since 2011 with 450 shows per month. Now they're doing anywhere between 30-40 shows per day (900-1,200 shows per month), with tickets averaging $10 each, offering fans the option to donate more.

Legendary soul singer-songwriter Bill Withers, the author behind such enduring hits like 'Ain’t No Sunshine', 'Lean on Me', and 'Lovely Day', died from heart complications on Monday, March 30, at age 81. Over the span of eight years, Withers recorded seven studio albums, beginning with 'Just as I Am' in 1971, and his final 'Watching You Watching Me' in 1985, in his brief but influential career. His music was also widely sampled in hip-hop: Famously, Blackstreet and Dr. Dre sampled Withers’ 'Grandma's Hands' for 'No Diggity', and Kanye West sampled 'Rosie' for 'Roses'.

MTV is launching MTV Unplugged At Home today, stripped-down, acoustic sets from artists including Jewel, Finneas, Melissa Etheridge, Monsta X, Alessia Cara, Shaggy, Yungblud, and Wyclef Jean. The first episode, featuring Alessia Cara, airs Friday, April 3rd at 12:00 p.m. EST via MTV’s YouTube channel. NPR is taking a similar path with its beloved Tiny Desk series, having recently launched Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts. Early episodes have featured Michael McDonald and Margo Price performing mini sets from their homes.

R'n'b singer Ciara and her American football husband Russell Wilson are donating 10 million meals to nonprofit Feeding America, for its COVID-19 relief effort, MSN reports. Feeding America has estimated that a $1 donation can provide 10 meals, so according to that, Wilson and Ciara have pledged $1 million for the organization’s relief efforts. In the meantime, Feeding America got the biggest donation in their history - $100 million from Amazon's Jeff Bezos.

Lists are always great fun, right? Billboard made a totally unnecessary and a totally fun one - a list of the biggest pop stars every year since 1981 to 2019. It starts with Blondie, continues with Michael Jackson and Madonna from the 1980s, Nirvana and TLC, among others, from the 1990s, Eminem and Beyonce from 2000s, and Adele and Justin Bieber from the last ten years. Find the full list - here.

Jarvis Cocker, Ben Gibbard, Jim James, Devendra Banhart, Fred Armisen, UK folk legend Michael Chapman, Brazilian music great Marcos Valle, The Free Design‘s Sandy Dedrick, Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys, and more are taking part in a livestream COVID-19 relief benefit today at 4 p.m. PT via Light In The Attic’s Twitch and YouTube channels. Soccer Mommy performs today at 1 p.m. ET on Instagram Basia Bulat is on at 2 p.m. ET on Instagram Norman Brannon (Texas Is The Reason and Shelter) continues his daily livestream series at 3 p.m. ET, with Dennis Lyxzén (Refused) as guest Donita Sparks of L7 launches The Hi-Low Show with Donita Sparks weekly show today at 6 p.m. ET on YouTube. Friday’s guests are Lydia Lunch and Dani Miller Chick Corea is on at 7 p.m. ET, part of the Live from our Living Rooms Jazz Festival Levi’s brings "live performances from some of your favorite artists” every weekday at 8:01 p.m. ET on Instagram today it's Burna Boy and Kiana Lede Bad Brains’ H.R. is on at 9 p.m. ET on Stageit The Tallest Man on Earth is “planning a Youtube livestream on Friday”, “probably around Friday afternoon EST so Sweden is still up” Tomorrow, Waxahatchee, Snail Mail, Brian Fallon, Beach Bunny, The Marias, The Aces, and Cautious Clay play at Fender curated stage at UnCancelled Music Festival at 4 p.m. ET.

"I think I end up virtually seeing more friends from across the country than I’ve seen on any one night out for a long time. I’m having enough fun that it’s gone 5am when I realise I’ve been on this internet session for the best part of 12 hours and call it time to log off. No Uber fare and in bed within seconds" - Mix Mag's editor wrote after a weekned of virtual raving in online clubs such as Club Quarantäne, The Temple of Lost Future, and Isolation Station. “This is such medicine everyone, we are lucky to have this time alive together” - another raver said.

An interesting and easily read article in the Trapital about partnership between Adidad and Beyonce. It goes back to the 2000s and Adidas' misfortunate start with Reebok, to their change of luck with Kanye West, which makes for a promising deal with Beyonce.

Pitchfork assembled a list of foundations, reliefs, grants, and other ways of helping musicians in the time of the big lockdown. It's aimed at artists in need and fans looking to do some good.

Kings of Leon's frontman Caleb Followill released 'Going Nowhere', an acoustic song, quite simple, but just about right; Niniola made an Afrobeat banger 'Fantasy' featuring Femi Kuti; Amber Mark shared an r'n'b cover of 'Heart-Shaped Box', different, to say the least; Greg Fox - drummer for Ex Eye and Liturgy - released 'From the Cessation of What', an interesting progy-jazzy little thing; London singer-songwriter Eve Owen made an album with the National’s Aaron Dessner, 'Blue Moon' is the latest single from it.

The BBC has seen listening figures for its stations rise by 18 per cent during the lockdown, NME’s radio services have experienced their best month ever with a 12% month-on-month increase, while Global and Bauer have both witnessed surges of 15 per cent. Capital UK's Roman Kemp thinks that people search for consolation through something familiar - “As our world seemingly gets smaller, people want that communal experience”, NME reports.

Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Blink-182, and Cypress Hill are among the high-profile names who star in the new trailer for the upcoming Netflix documentary 'LA Originals' about tattoo artist Mister Cartoon and photographer Oriol. Directed by Estevan Oriol and set for release on April 10, 'LA Originals' is billed as “an exploration of the culture and landmarks of the chicano and street art movement".

Dolly Parton has donated $1m to research into a coronavirus vaccine to the Vanderbilt Institute for Infection, Immunology and Inflammation at Vanderbilt University hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. ABC reports. Also, on Thursday (7 p.m. ET). Parton is launching Goodnight With Dolly, a bedtime story series on YouTube, beginning with a reading of 'The Little Engine That Could'. She said she hoped the series would be “a welcome distraction during a time of unrest, and inspire a love of reading and books”.

The Weeknd leads the Billboard 200 chart with his fourth #1 album 'After Hours', Hot 100 chart with his fifth #1 single 'Blinding Lights', and he also sits at #1 on the current Artist 100 chart, Hot 100 Songwriters chart, and the Hot Producers chart. This makes him the first act to hold the #1 spot on those five rankings at the same time. He told Billboard how he refused to postpone his album, because - "hopefully it can help some people escape our reality, if only for an hour out of their day". So, people massively escaped...

Adam Schlesinger, the co-founder and songwriter of alter-rock band Fountains of Wayne, has died from complications of COVID-19, at age 52, Rolling Stone reports. He left plenty of work behind: six Fountains of Wayne albums, five Ivy albums, one Tinted Windows album, 157 songs for the TV series 'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend', one Broadway musical, one off-Broadway musical, one unforgettable hit song for a fake '60s rock band in a Tom Hanks movie, and plenty more.

Billboard has an encouraging story about 10 bands that made music while their members were (physically) distant. The Postal Service, innovators of long-distance recording, used physical mail as their communicative medium - hence the name. Superorganism - with musicians from the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and Japan - united in an indie pop group after connecting via various channels over the years and their debut single, 'Something for Your M.I.N.D.' came out before all eight members had ever been in a room together.

Ellis Marsalis, jazz legend, educator and patriarch of the Marsalis family of musicians, died on Wednesday at age 85, Billboard reports. Cause of death are believed to have been complications from COVID-19, according to his family. Harvard Law professor David Wilkins sent a moving text following Marsalis' death: "We can all marvel at the sheer audacity of a man who believed he could teach his black boys to be excellent in a world that denied that very possibility, and then watch them go on to redefine what excellence means for all time.”

Live Nation has established Crew Nation, a new charitable fund to help support concert crews around the world impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, Variety reports. "Crew members are the backbone of the live music industry" - the entertainment company said, committing $10 million - a $5 million donation directly to the fund and another $5 million to match contributions by artists, fans and employees dollar-for-dollar. Live Nation president and CEO Michael Rapino's family will be personally donating $250,000. Crew Nation has been designed to help tour managers, production managers, riggers, sound engineers, backline techs, lighting directors/designers, special effects teams, carpenters and more.

Rihanna has collaborated with Jay-Z's Shawn Carter Foundation (SCF) for a combined donated $2 million to COVID-19 relief, All Hip Hop reports. This effort is to support New Yorkers and Los Angelenos who are elderly, undocumented, incarcerated, homeless and children of medical professionals.

Swedish company Record Union has shared The Wellness Starter Pack, a new toolkit of resources to help artists manage their mental health. It focuses on five elements to maintaining good health: nutrition, mindfulness, positivity, exercise, and sleep. The company consulted a handful of doctors and other specialists for its articles and videos (below), which are intended as a starting-off point for artists.