Production collective Quakers released 'Double Jointed', an ironic take on racism with; Broadcast celebrated the birthday of late Trish Keenan with a release of a simple a lovely song 'Where Are You?'; punks Stick To Your Guns released 'Hasta la Victoria', with powerful lyrics, and a Viktor Jara quote; Deerhoof made a covers album mixing snippets of songs by Voivod, Velvet Underground, Sun Ra, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Beach Boys, Morricone and many more - 'Love-Lore 2' is one of those; Zulu goes from metal ripper to afro-funk 'Now They Are Through With Me'; Dutch-Ghanian singer-songwriter Nana Adjoa deals with nationalism in democracy in 'National Song'; shoegazers Nothing emanate being lost in 'Bernie Sanders'.

"A musician’s need to be heard is not just psychological inspiration, needy approbation, or box office compensation. We need audiences because without anyone listening, the music doesn’t exist – merely proverbial trees falling unheard in the distant forest" - conductor Mark Wigglesworth wrote in the Guardian ahead of a public concert this week with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. The communal quality of music goes broader, he argues - "though listening to a piece privately can bring great solace or joy, the original purpose of music is to be connected by sharing something together as a community".

"Before there was metal, there was Black Sabbath" - Dr. Martens said ahead of the release of their new Black Sabbath boots, marking the 50th anniversary of Black Sabbath's self-titled debut and sophomore album 'Paranoid'. The boots are set to drop on October 1 on drmartens.com.

Country songwriter Mac Davis who penned 'In The Ghetto' and 'A Little Less Conversation' for Elvis Presley, has died at the age of 78, CoS reports. He also worked with Dolly Parton, Bruno Mars, Johnny Cash, Tom Jones, Rivers Cuomo of Weezer, and DJ Avicii (on 'Addicted To Love'). In the 1970s Davis had a string of solo hits, including the number one single 'Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me', his signature song 'I Believe In Music', as well as 'Whoever Finds This, I Love You', and 'Stop and Smell the Roses'.

"I’m talking about just knowing what you like and having a lot of room to like it. I’m talking about hanging out in that space and having time to continuously renovate it. I’m talking about pleasure, of course, but also self-definition: part of who I am is my love for these things, even if you think they’re bad" - author Anne Helen Petersen wrote in an announcement of her new book 'Can't Even'. She describes how her music taste made her as a person, and how the change in music consumption made her taste less firm.

Nikki Patterson, of Aberdeen, has set a Guinness World Records for the most tattoos of Eminem - she has 16 portraits of the American rapper tattooed on her body, according to BBC. She got her first Eminem tattoo at 19, now, aged 35, she has 52 tattoos in total and 28 - including the 16 portraits - are based on The Slim Shady.

Helen Reddy, the Australian singer behind feminist anthem 'I Am Woman', has died aged 78, Variety reports. Reddy said she had penned the lyrics for the song - with lines such as "I am woman, hear me roar" and "I am strong, I am invincible, I am woman" - after struggling to find other songs which reflected her pride in being a woman. A sleeper hit, it went on to sell millions of copies worldwide, making Reddy the biggest-selling female artist globally for two years running. Also, she became prominent in the women's liberation movement. Her first hit, 'I Don't Know How to Love Him', was followed by a succession of others including 'Crazy Love', 'Delta Dawn', and 'Angie Baby'.

Bloomberg writes about efforts to restart the live events sector. The Utopia music festival in September served as a potential new model for the future as all the attendees were screened with a Covid-19 test a few days before the event - and again at the door - in an effort to create an event “bubble". The founder of Croatia’s Lighthouse Festival launched a 60-second, gargling-based Covid-19 test that is currently available over the counter in Austria. Ravel Hotel in New York made waves over the summer by offering rapid tests to revelers at its crowded rooftop parties...

Louder calls 'When I Die...' is "the most important British metal record of 2020", while Angry Metal Guy says it is "a heart-wrenching album whose simplicity in D-beats, stunning tremolo, sustained overlays, desperate vocals, and just a dash of post and black is truly refreshing". Kerrang insists on lyrics being "at their most personal and most blunt here", while Stereogum simply calls the album "phenomenal".

17% music professionals say they would return to work now unconditionally, and an additional 43% say they would go to work right this second if health guidelines are followed, Pollstar reports on an industry survey. 75% of club owners said they are prepared to ramp back up at less than full capacity.

Nick Cave wrote a lovely tribute to his son Arthur, who tragically died in 2015 aged 15 after falling off a cliff. He wrote the letter on his The Red Hand Files blog, as an answer to a fan Richard who asked Cave whether he liked magic. He described how Arthur was a magician himself for about a year when he was around 14, and how good he became, and finished his response like this: "I am sorry that maybe in the end these words are not addressed to you. Maybe these words are projected beyond this world, as a wish, as a prayer, as a sleight of hand, hoping they may draw the attention of the spirits themselves. Our boy, our magician, our vanisher — we miss you".

All seven members of BTS have become multi-millionaires after their label Big Hit Entertainment started an IPO. The K-Pop label issued its shares at 135,000 won, or $115 apiece, raising 962.55 million won, or $822 million, and giving Big Hit a market valuation of 4.8 trillion won, or $4.1 billion. Big Hit boss Bang Si-hyuk, who owns 43% of the management label, has become a billionaire. He gave the seven members of BTS, all in their early- to mid-20s, more than 68,000 shares each — that values their stakes at about $8 million apiece. The public offering values Big Hit at $4 billion. BTS fans in South Korea are hoping to buy at least one share in the management label.

The skies do sound different during the pandemic, as many have noticed, and indeed, birds are singing different tunes during lockdown, according to a scientific study by the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. By analysing the calls of sparrows recorded over decades, scientists confirmed a change in the birds' vocal repertoire when the city fell quiet, Science Alert reports. The birds upped the quality of their songs, as they called to defend their territory and entice a mate. The sparrows also sang more quietly.

Fuck The Facts release their metallic hardcore ripper 'Pleine Noirceur'; 'Estranged Fruit' is a powerful rendition of Billie Holiday / Nina Simone protest song 'Strange Fruit' by the Fishbone; 'Courage To Change' by Sia is a case of a pop song done well.

Inspired by the stealth approach of the Mercury Prize ceremony last week, NME's Mark Beaumont writes today that all the awards ceremonies should be conducted that way - "Most of music’s award ceremonies have become so formulaic, dreary and smugly ‘establishment’ that the ninja approach necessitated by corona might well be the shake-up they desperately need". There's several benefits, one of which is - stars caught off guard: "At a stealth award ceremony, you’d really get an insight into the true natures of the stars... The cult rock band, with no time to rehearse their snarled acceptance shrug, might break down and weep like Paltrow in an Oscar factory at the unexpected honour".

Black opera singer Emmanuel "Onry" Henreid went viral in June with a video of an impromptu duet with a student Madisen Hallberg performing national anthem - a moment of racial unity during the Black Lives Matter protests. BBC talked to Onry - he described how he was told he wasn't able, physically, to sing opera, and how he is prevented from singing by the police anywhere outside opera houses.

he Forty-Five describes innovative methods K-pop artists use to make online concert feel alive and exciting, making fans feel like they're close to the musician, even closes in some instances. Organizers use Zoom to make feel fans cheering on from home over Zoom as a venue crowd. Few lucky viewers get real-time video calls from musicians. Also, the acts are merging online chatrooms with between-song banter...

American federal judge Carl Nichols blocked President Trump's TikTok ban on Sunday, granting a temporary reprieve to the video-sharing app, NBC reports. During a telephone court hearing on Sunday, lawyers for TikTok argued that the app is a "modern day version of the town square" and that shutting it down is akin to silencing speech. D.C. judge responded by halting the ban, which was set to kick in at midnight Sunday.

Startup Create/OS made a Record Deal Simulator, a fun little tool designed to show how record deals work. So, in a standard 20/80 royalty deal where 20% goes to the artist, and 80% to the label, with a $1 million budget - $400,000 advance, $200,000 in recording costs, and $400,000 for marketing -te artist would have to generate 1 billion streams before making the very first dollar in royalties. The label will have made $3 million in profits at that point.

Taylor Swift’s 'Folklore' returns to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart this week, collecting a seventh nonconsecutive week atop the tally with that album, Billboard reports. Swift’s total weeks at Billboard's No. 1 now stands at 47 across all seven of her chart-topping albums, so she surpasses Whitney Houston’s longstanding record, among women, for the most cumulative weeks at No. 1 - Houston’s tally stays at 46. The all-time record with the most weeks at No. 1 is held by The Beatles, with 132 weeks at No. 1 across 19 albums. The male act (and solo artist) with the most weeks atop the list is Elvis Presley, with 67.

The newest season of Lost Notes podcast is out - season three covers the year 1980 - "the brilliant, awkward and sometimes heartbreaking opening to a monumental decade in popular music". This season is hosted by the poet and cultural critic Hanif Abdurraqib. In 1980, Sugarhill Gang where doing something that would change the music, the death of John Lennon would mark death of an era, punk singer Darby Crash died just a day earlier...

Pitchfork says the new Fleet Foxes album 'Shore' is "staring into a darkness and responding with beauty, acceptance, and light", gives it its Best new music tag. Stereogum calls it "the oldest and wisest Fleet Foxes album". MusicOMH says it is "a glorious, life-affirming collection of songs". Similar in the atmosphere, and critics' reaction, is Sufjan Stevens' new album 'Ascension': Independent found "whole galaxies of nuance in a universal context", The Quietus says Stevens is "unflinchingly honest in its assessment of the United States as well as a very personal and raw portrait of Steven’s own humanity and fallibility". "Stevens' music delivers the jolt of encountering this life force in its raw, factory-unprocessed form and realizing there is not all that much difference between its seemingly competing varieties" - NPR.

The Doobie Brothers wrote Bill Murray a funny letter requesting him to stop playing or start paying for their song 'Listen to the Music' to promote hit own golf apparel brand William Murray Golf, CNN reports. Murray started running new ads promoting William Murray Golf’s latest shirt named Zero Hucks Given, using Doobie Brothers' song without asking, so they told him - "given that you haven’t paid to use it, maybe you should change the name to ‘Zero Bucks Given'”. The thing, they don't like those shirts - "we’d almost be OK with it if the shirts weren’t so damn ugly. But it is what it is. So in the immortal words of Jean Paul Sartre, 'Au revoir Golfer. Et payez!'”.

Beastie Boys are sharing their final concert ever, their 2009 headlining performance at Bonnaroo, for free on YouTube all weekend long. They didn't know it then, but it was their last concert - barely a month later, Adam “MCA” Yauch was diagnosed with salivary gland cancer, in 2011 the band released 'Red Hot Sauce Committee Part Two', and a year later Yauch died. High-quality audio and considerably detailed camera shots make the video that more special.

An interesting interview with Janelle Monáe in the Guardian, covering a lot of subjects:

On her sexuality: For me, it is a journey, not a destination, as I gather more information about who I like

On growing up “as a Baptist kid in a very small, Republican state”: You feel, oh my goodness, I don’t know how I even have this conversation with my loved ones when all I’m hearing every Sunday is: if you are not heterosexual, you’re going to hell. And people using the Bible as a whip

On working on her artistic identity: I had time to say no to things that didn’t work for me. I had time to find myself, to prepare myself for some of the obstacles that would come my way, and to understand that my story’s not supposed to be everybody’s story

On systemic racism: My ancestors were forced to come to America and work for free, and the first institution of policing was the slave patrol, which was meant to hunt down and kill black people who had run away. So when we’re screaming, ‘Defund the police’, that’s what we are speaking to: we are reminding people that the police were not meant to protect and serve our community; they were meant to terrorise us. It’s a system built on traumatising black folks

The posthumous debut album by US rapper Pop Smoke, 'Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon' climbs to Number 1 on this week’s Official UK Albums Chart. It has become a norm for hip-hop albums to get the majority of the sales from streaming - 97% of Pop Smoke's charts sales figure this week came from streams (rock still clings to physical album sales). Pop Smoke, who died in February this year, becomes the first solo artist to land a posthumous Number 1 debut album in the UK – the only other act to have done so was Warrington band Viola Beach who topped the Official Albums Chart with their self-titled debut in 2016 (a few months after the complete band died in a car crash).

The UK rock/metal publication Metal Hammer called Canadian rapper Backxwash one of “modern rap's more avant garde artists” after hearing her EP 'Stigmata' and her debut album 'God Has Nothing To Do With This Leave Him Out Of It. MH's online output described her debut as "thrilling trap metal" and "fucking brilliant". Complex sees two reasons for it - her lyrics are cathartic, but also dark, aggressive, and loaded with goth and biblical imagery; her music is powerful and dark, with plenty of classic rock and metal samples.

In 2016, streaming and downloading music generated around a 194 million kilograms of greenhouse-gas emissions - some 40 million more than the emissions associated with all music formats in 2000 - author Kyle Devine says in his recent book 'Decomposed: The Political Ecology of Music'. Given the special circumstances the figure for 2020 will be much greater. Devine Devine incorporates his ecology of music into a more comprehensive vision of anthropogenic crisis, the cost of having all the music at the touch of a finger, New Yorker reports.

Renowned Indian singer SP Balasubrahmanyam, a Guinness world record holder for his more than 40,000 songs over 50 years, has died aged 74, following a Covid-19 diagnosis, CNN reports. From romantic hits to popular dance tracks, he sang some of Indian cinema's best-known numbers, spanning 16 languages. The Wire listed 15 of his awards for which he won awards.

The 2020 Mercury prize for the year’s best British album has gone to Michael Kiwanuka for his self-titled album, 'Kiwanuka', BBC reports. He has been nominated for each of his previous albums: 'Home Again' (2012) and 'Love & Hate' (2016). He gets the honor and wins £25,000 this year. The other nominated artists this year were Anna Meredith, Charli XCX, Dua Lipa, Georgia, Kano, Lanterns on the Lake, Laura Marling, Moses Boyd, Porridge Radio, Sports Team, and Stormzy.