Trapital Dan Runcie's latest podcast is about the Super Bowl Halftime Show, how it evolved since Jay-Z got involved, and why artists agree to play for free: "In 95% of situations, companies asking talent to do things free 'for exposure' is bullshit. But the Super Bowl halftime show is one of those 5% exceptions. It’s the rare event that the talent can reap the long-term rewards for the exposure." This year, Rihanna will perform and she has prepared her business for the "after". Listen/watch the podcast below.

Burt Bacharach, the songwriter and performer who scored dozens of hits, has died at 94 at home in Los Angeles of natural causes, CNN reports. 'I Say a Little Prayer', sung by Aretha Franklin, 'What’s New Pussycat?' by Tom Jones, 'The Look of Love' by Dusty Springfield, 'Make It Easy on Yourself' by the Walker Brothers, are some of his hits. 'Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head', performed by BJ Thomas and featured in the film 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid', won a Grammy and an Oscar in 1969, while Bacharach’s music for the film won the Oscar for best original score. Dionne Warwick became one of Bacharach’s most enduring and fruitful collaborators, with hits such as 'Walk on By', 'Do You Know the Way to San Jose?', 'Anyone Who Had a Heart', 'A House is Not a Home'... As of 2014, Bacharach had written 73 US and 52 UK Top 40 hits and is considered one of the most important composers of 20th-century popular music.

Sleaford Mods have shared 'Force 10 From Navarone,' a collaborative track with Dry Cleaning's Florence Shaw that's from their upcoming album 'UK Grim', NME reports. Shaw's deadpan delivery fits right in with post-punk-meets-dance banger of a beat. "She’s the real deal and conjures the inspiration I get from the likes of Wu-Tang in the way she uses one word to convey a whole story" - Mods frontman Jason Williamson points out. As for the song, Williams says “The track is a conversation with myself coming to terms with happiness and whether it is in fact a darker space than my negativity and depression. Coupled with that it explores the myth of activism and inaction of the majority in the UK in the presence of a corrupt government.”

Michael Jackson's estate is working to sell half of their interests in Jackson’s discography for around $800 million to $900 million, Variety reports. Sony and a possible financial partner are negotiating to acquire 50% of the Jackson estate’s interests in a number of the artist’s sources of income, including his musical catalog, publishing, the MJ: The Musical Broadway show, and the upcoming biopic Michael.

Birmingham Royal Ballet director Carlos Acosta and Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi came up with an unusual idea - to pair Black Sabbath music and ballet dancing. Luckily, the idea is coming to fruition - 'Black Sabbath the Ballet' will premiere in Birmingham in September. It will feature eight Black Sabbath tracks - 'Paranoid', 'War Pigs', 'Orchid' and 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath' among them, re-orchestrated for the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, plus new music inspired by the band.

Google launched its AI knowledge accumulator and provider Bard, with Alphabet's CEO Sundar Pichai presenting the new service: "Bard seeks to combine the breadth of the world’s knowledge with the power, intelligence and creativity of our large language models. It draws on information from the web to provide fresh, high-quality responses. Bard can be an outlet for creativity, and a launchpad for curiosity, helping you to explain new discoveries from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to a 9-year-old, or learn more about the best strikers in football right now, and then get drills to build your skills".

The Irish folk band Lankum talk to the Quietus ahead of their fourth album 'False Lankum'. “I like to think of us as a gateway” - Ian Lynch, the vocalist, piper, concertina player, whistler and multi-instrumentalist describes the idea behind the band - “I think it’s important to have bands who are in some way accessible, then once you’ve got used to those kinds of sounds you’re open to hearing stuff that’s straight-up tradition. It’s like that with any genre, whether you’re talking black metal, noise, or classical music, there’s the outer layer that you have to train your ears to.”

"In the age of social media and algorithms, success is more specialized. There are 'festival artists,' and then there are “tour artists.' There are 'streaming artists,' and there are 'album sales artists.' Similarly, there are 'actors,' and there are 'podcasters.' It has always been hard to succeed at all of them, and that’s especially true in a world with more specialists" - Trapital's Dan Runcie shares in his latest memo, underlining that "with social media, platforms, and algorithms, celebrity power has shifted to specialization".

“This is definitely not a ‘cutesy grannies have a go at punk’ band – this is serious fun, We write our own music and we’ve got a lot to say about everything we’re angry about" - Alison 'Fish' Dunne says to Guardian about joining Unglamorous Music project. It's a collective of older women from all classes and ethnicities, founded last year by 61-year-old Ruth Miller, which aim is to create a local punk scene for older, all-female bands who write their own music. It comes down to rebellion. Carole Jasilek, the 70-year-old drummer for Venus Attax, makes a strong point - “Punk was anarchic and what’s more anarchic than older women letting rip?”.

General sale tickets for the UK leg of Beyoncé’s ‘Renaissance‘ tour were made available yesterday (Tuesday, February 7), however her fans were met with huge queues, NME reports. Fans have reported experiencing glitches on the Ticketmaster website, with others saying they were kicked out of the queue, which reportedly reached 500,000 on some dates. Ticketmaster has since clarified that reports of ‘403’ messages actually refer to the blocking of “known bad traffic”, adding that the site “blocked 1.5million requests of that type today in the London queues alone to ensure real fans get their hands on ticket

Charlie Thomas of the Drifters, best known for R&B hits like 'There Goes My Baby', 'Sweets For My Sweet', and 'Under the Boardwalk' with the Drifters, has died January 31 at the age of 85 from liver cancer, the New York Times reports. 'Save The Last Dance For Me' reached No. 1 on the Billboard charts, while 'There Goes My Baby,' and 'Up on the Roof' have become beloved R&B classics throughout the years. Thomas was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and dedicated more than 60 years to keeping the group’s music alive for future generations.

The four major recorded music companies – Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, and indie collective Merlin – have cumulatively lost 12% of market share on Spotify over the past five years, MBW reports. In 2017 they accounted for 87% tracks played on Spotify, and last year 75% of plays of music tracks on the platform were distributed by the ‘big three’ majors or a Merlin member. The rest of the 25% was distributed by companies that were unaffiliated with the majors or Merlin. In related news, TikTok has launched its independent distribution platform SoundOn in Australia - it lets artists upload their music directly to TikTok and RESSO and can also distribute artists’ music to platforms like Spotify, Apple Music and Instagram. SoundOn was already Live in the UK, US, Brazil, and Indonesia, after launching in March last year, the MBW reports.

uper-producer and songwriter Jack Antonoff talked to the press after his Grammy win last night, addressing soaring concert ticket prices and the sustainability of pandemic-era touring for musicians. "The whole thing is incredibly tough. There's no reason why — if I can go online and buy a car and have it delivered to my house, why can't I buy a fucking ticket at the price that the artist wants it to be?... Let artists opt out of dynamic pricing. Stop taxing merch, and let artists sell tickets at a price that they actually believe. Don't turn a live show into a free market. That's really dirty. Charge what you think is fair". He also went into the motives behind the decision to become a musician: "We're a very easy group of people — historically, and not much has changed — to take advantage of because we didn't start doing it because of money."

The 2023 Grammys celebrated the 50th anniversary of hip hop with a truly star-studded, multi-generational medley of performances, including the Roots, Run DMC, LL Cool J, Jazzy Jeff, Salt N Pepa, Rakim, Public Enemy, Ice-T, Queen Latifah, Method Man, Big Boi, Missy Elliott, The LOX, De La Soul, Busta Rhymes, Grandmaster Flash, Grandmaster Melle Mel, Nelly, Scarface, Lil Baby, GloRilla, Too $hort, Lil Uzi Vert, and others.

Anonymous South Korean musician Parannoul released his third album 'After the Magic' featuring the stand-out track 'Arrival'. The symphonic guitar song is emblematic of the general dream-pop meets shoegaze sonics of the whole album. It's place where indie music wholeheartedly embraces pop music.

An interesting experiment by the Music Journalism Insider - they gave ChatGPT a task to make an interview with itself about music journalism. Turns out, the AI is quite self-aware: "AI tools can extract data from various sources, analyze it and generate articles or reports that can be used to supplement human journalism. However, this doesn’t mean that AI will replace human journalists completely. AI is good at producing basic information and data-driven reports, but lacks the emotional intelligence and creativity that humans bring to journalism."

Beyoncé became the most decorated musician in Grammy history - with her win for the Best Dance/Electronic Music Album for 'Renaissance', she has now won 32 Grammys over the span of her career, CNBC reports. Viola Davis has become the 18th person to achieve the EGOT - winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award - by winning best audiobook for her autobiography 'Finding Me'. In other major awards, Harry Styles won Album of the year for 'Harry's House', Lizzo won Record of the year for 'About Damn Time', and Bonnie Raitt took home the Song of the year trophy for 'Just Like That'. Samara Joy was crowned Best new artist, Robert Glasper won Best R&B album for 'Black Radio III', Kendrick Lamar in both Best rap song and Best rap album categories with 'The Heart Part 5', and 'Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers', respectively. Ozzy Osbourne's 'Patient Number Nine', was named best rock album, while his song 'Degradation Rules' won best metal performance. British indie duo Wet Leg also received two awards - including best alternative album for 'Wet Leg' and best alternative song for their breakout single, 'Chaise Longue'. Meanwhile composer and violinist Stephanie Economou received the first ever Grammy for best video game soundtrack, recognising her work on 'Assassin's Creed: Dawn Of Ragnarok'. First Lady Jill Biden honored an “anthem” of the protests in Iran Sunday night, 'Baraye' by AcademicShervin Hajipour as she presented a new Grammy Award recognizing songs that address social change. See Grammys in pictures. Check out all the nominees and winners.

Edinburgh threesome Youing Fathers have released their fourth album 'Heavy Heavy' - "a project that still manages to be equal parts anthemic and infectious... a passionate, soulful and often mesmerising work that will stick around long past the first listen" - NME points out. The Quietus is in awe of how "they’ve managed to create something more massive, more explosive and more earnest than ever before". Stereogum picks it out for their latest Album of the Week - "this is eminently welcoming, empathetic music that rewards engagement on levels both deep and superficial". In a Guardian interview, the band defines their sound - “We don’t think our music is weird. It’s just the context it exists within makes it seem weird. We love choruses, hooks. This is the pop music that we want to listen to.”

Kendrick Lamar's landmark 2015 album 'To Pimp a Butterfly' had overtaken the top spot on the popular community review site Rate Your Music, surpassing Radiohead’s 'OK Computer' as the highest-ranked album of all time. 'To Pimp a Butterfly' now has a 4.34 rating, the highest on the platform; 'OK Computer' is at 4.26. Rate Your Music uses a complex algorithm to calculate an album’s score, which considers factors including total number of reviews, each user’s activity level on the site, and more. Radiohead, however, have a total of three albums in the Top 10, Pink Floyd have two.

Irish contemporary folk band Lankum has shared their new song 'Go Dig My Grave'. The 9-minute single takes a turn into drone-folk territory, bringing swaths of ambient, funeral sonics. 'Go Dig My Grave' announces the band's fourth album 'False Lankum', coming out on Rough Trade Records the 24th of March 2023.

"Any effort to demystify the Grammys voting process tends to raise more questions than it does answers. The Grammys’ definition of excellence in Dance/Electronic music is as it applies to voting members of the Academy, who are not necessarily experts in dance music. Their choices more often than not reflect tracks and albums that have sold well and/or gone viral on TikTok" - Mixmag tries to find out who actually decides the nominations and the winners in the Dance/Electronic field at the Grammys, and what determines a track or album’s eligibility.

Lizzo has managed to patent the "100% that bitch" phrase, which she used on her breakout single 'Truth Hurts' when she proclaimed “I just took a DNA test, turns out I’m 100% that bitch”. In 2019, the musician expressed interest in trademarking the phrase for later use on clothing and merchandise. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which denied Lizzo’s application last year, had its ruling overturned by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. Now, she can sell the phrase as her original, the CMU reports.

TikTok has removed major record company music from its service for a number of its users in Australia, who no longer have the choice to use it in their videos, Bloomberg reports. MBW is guessing that TikTok is aiming to use the results of the experiment in their next round of record company licensing negotiations. The estimate is TikTok is hoping that the removal of major label music won’t have a profound effect on the engagement of users on the service. This then opens up a conversation about the true monetary value of music licensing from major record labels.

Tickets resellers have started posting listings for tickets for Beyoncé's Renaissance tour for as much as $3,000 a ticket, although they don't actually have them, Rolling Stone reports. Some of the best seats for Beyoncé’s So-Fi Stadium show in Los Angeles in September are selling for $3,064 per ticket on VividSeats. The cheapest were listed at $570. This isn't the first such case - tickets for Fall Out Boy’s 'So Much For (Tour) Dust' Tour were listed on resale sites the day before the official start of sale for hundreds of dollars a ticket.

Tone Glow talked to Detroit techno trio HiTech about their debut album, and also, among other issues, about reaching for freedom through dance:

"King Milo: I be tired of seein’ people be locked up. You gotta understand, and I know you understand this for sure, bro—when people, these days, are at a show, they’re a little more tightly-knit since before COVID. And after COVID, you have to get these people to chill the fuck out. Release these inhibitions out, and kind of let it go, and have fun. You’ll have people out to shows, and if it’s not one of those A-tier joints, they tend to be a little more reserved until they see a million people be unleashed. I want people to feel like it can be ten, twenty, thirty, a thousand people there and you can unlock, just jazz out. I don’t want no locked in, confinement of the mind and expression.

47Chops: We want people to have fun, not worry about all that other shit. And, dancing is not only spiritual, but it’s good for you, it’s healthy.

Milf Melly: Burnin’ hella calories (laughter).

47Chops: Relieves stress".

Music writer Ted Gioia doesn't like ChatGPT, he doesn't like it one bit: "ChatGPT is hotter than Wordle and Taylor Swift combined... People love it. People have confidence in it. They want to use it for everything—legal work, medical advice, term papers, or even writing Substack columns... But that’s exactly what the confidence artist always does. Which is:

• You give people what they ask for.
• You don’t worry whether it’s true or not—because ethical scruples aren’t part of your job description.
• If you get caught in a lie, you serve up another lie.
• You always act sure of yourself—because your confidence is what seals the deal".

Tunisian producer and composer Ghoula is about to release his new album 'Demi-écrémé'—which translates roughly to "semi-skimmed", and which features songs built around the sounds he captured during his travels around Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Lebanon. On that voyage he found a lot of vinyl, so he played around with chords, tunes, and instruments to make his second album. "It’s like being in conversation with another person through sound. I found myself thinking, ‘These sounds are derivatives of the original source.’ So I’ll call it 'Semi-skimmed'” - he says to Bandcamp Daily.

"The punch-drunk beat... comes from Leon Vynehall, The Invisible’s Dave Okumu is on guitar, and the mixdown by Lexxx is perfectly weighted, evoking small-town claustrophobia without crowding Wesley out" - Gabriel Szatan recommends 'Hiatus' by the London rapper. Then there's vocals: "His elastic, ruminative flow about teenage years spent hopping buses between Walsall and Birmingham to escape the stultifying sense of 'feeling navy' is captivating enough, yet it doesn’t remotely telegraph the track’s surprise denouement, where Wesley lets ring a falsetto so far up his register, you might be hoodwinked into thinking it’s a choir".

Great musicians nominated for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as part of the class of 2023: Iron Maiden, George Michael, Soundgarden, Missy Elliott, Rage Against the Machine, A Tribe Called Quest, Kate Bush, Sheryl Crow, the White Stripes, Cyndi Lauper, Warren Zevon, Willie Nelson, and the Spinners. Joy Division and New Order are nominated together for first-time Rock Hall consideration.

What does "stylish" mean? Anything actually - that's the frame Rolling Stone gave its jury that cherry-picked the 25 most stylish musicians. The very USA-centric list has Dua Lipa on one, and Seve Lacy on the other edge.