Billie Eilish has launched a collection of toy figurines inspired by the videos for her hit singles ‘Bad Guy’ and ‘All The Good Girls Go To Hell’, Rolling Stone reports. The ‘Bad Guy’ doll stands 10.5 inches tall and features a life-like sculpture of the singer in her yellow sweatsuit. The ‘All The Good Girls Go To Hell’ collectible figure measures six inches in height and features fully removable wings. The line launches on October 15.

Motörhead was the first band to "really unite fans" from multiple different genres - Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich told Classic Rock magazine in an issue celebrating 40 years the release of Motörhead's hit album 'Ace of Spades'. Ulrich explained - "back in 1980, the music world was way more segregated than it is now. So if you were a heavy metal guy there was a particular look, a uniform. If you were a punk kid it was the same, or an alternative kid if you liked Joy Division or whatever. Everything was very segregated, especially in England. The one thing that was different about Motörhead was that they united people from all these different genres... So all these punks, skinheads, alternative kids and metal kids... everybody loved Motörhead".

Take On Me' by A-Ha, 'Maniac' by Michael Sembello, 'Come on Eileen' by Dexys Midnight Runners, 'Kung fu fighting' by Carl Douglas, 'A Girl Like You' by Edwyn Collins are all one-hit wonders, songs way more famous than their respective authors, a phenomenon in music. Slate podcast discusses the theory of one-hit wonders...

The Oasis pop star Noel Gallagher announced his suspicion of masks last week proclaiming - “There’s no need for it… They’re pointless”. Former Stone Roses singer Ian Brown declared: “NO LOCKDOWN NO TESTS NO TRACKS NO MASKS NO VAX”. Tommy Scott of Space, did not disappoint. “I do not believe in any germs. If they are real, and there’s loads, why don’t they have a smell?”. Guardian tries to explain the "reasoning" behind - "it is asking a lot of the Britpop stars of yesteryear to believe in laws. Dominic Cumming’s [chief adviser to UK prime minister] lockdown drive to Barnard Castle, undertaken to 'test his eyesight', eroded the rules". Plus, it's not really their field of specialties...

Puerto Rican rapper and singer Bad Bunny performed outside on a moving, lit-up bus, which took him through the streets of New York on Sunday, Sept 20. At one point, he literally stopped traffic as fans chased after him, Hollywood Life reports. He streamed this event to his YouTube channel.

YoungBoy Never Broke Again landed on top of Billboard 200 with his new album 'Top', which garnered a total of 126,000 equivalent album units, Billboard reports. It's his third album in 11 months to reach the top of Billboard - '38 Baby 2' was the most selling album in the US in May 2020 and 'AI YoungBoy 2' in October 2019. Another new release in the Top 10 this week - Marilyn Manson scores its 10th top 10 album as 'We Are Chaos' bows at No. 8 with 31,000 equivalent album units earned.

Photos showing singer Brian Johnson and drummer Phil Rudd back in AC/DC were briefly posted on the AC/DC website last week before quickly being removed, accidentally confirming their comeback, Louder reports. They appear to have been taken during a video shoot and show drummer Phil Rudd playing with guitarist Stevie Young for the first time. Vocalist Brian Johnson is also shown - after he departed the group in 2016 following extensive hearing loss. The good news comes it was claimed that AC/DC have already recorded their next album.

Deftones are back in shape with their atmospheric and heavy newest single 'Genesis'; Aimee Mann covered Leonard Cohen’s ‘Avalanche’ for HBO’s true-crime docu-series 'I’ll Be Gone In The Dark', it's a changed song, richer, sang differently; Jamila Woods' 'Sula' is accompanied by an erotic video with the singer as the star of it; another "different" cover - Lykke Li plays Gloria Gaynor's disco anthem 'I Will Survive' as a haunting piano ballad.

Canadian rock musician Daniel Romano has released nine different albums this year. His latest, 'How Ill Thy World Is Ordered' is a baroque-pop/indie-rock album, and the first one released in a physical format since the live album 'OKAY WOW' from March (listen to 'How...' on Bandcamp; which PopMatters thinks highly of). Most of his releases this year have wrestled with specific genres, like punk, power-pop, or prog - for that one, a 22-minute song 'Forever Love's Fool', he got a hand from Danny Carey of Tool.

A new model for large scale festivals - Good Day Sunshine in Western Australia will feature a rotating stage and four distinct, individually ticketed areas for patrons divided by a fence, the Fader reports. The 5000-capacity fest is set to take place on October 31st. Performers will play in the single, rotating stage, while each separate area will be treated as its own 1250-capacity sealed-off event space, with no overlap of staff or patrons.

Transgender metalhead satanist Aria DiMezzo has won the Republican nomination for Cheshire County Sheriff in Keene, New Hampshire, in an attempt to prove the political paradox at hand, Loudwire reports. “I went into it expecting that I would lose the primary, because I didn’t think that so many voters were just… completely and totally oblivious about who they are voting for” she wrote in a blog post, but they did. She decided to run "because I oppose that very system, and the sheriff has the most hands-on ability in Cheshire County to oppose that system". Her official slogan is “F*** the Police". DiMezzo is the High Priestess of the Reformed Satanic Church, an anarchist, a metalhead who plays in the band FUD, and she’s using Trivium’s 'The Heart from Your Hate' is her official campaign song.

"'Untitled (Rise)' hardly yields highlights because the quality never wavers... It manages to be as lyrically unflinching as the music is compelling... You’d call it the album of the year if its predecessor wasn’t just as good" - Guardian's Alexis Petridis writes in a review of Sault's new album, anonymous neo-soul-funk band's second double album in just over 12 weeks, and their fourth in 18 months. The new album is "more obviously dancefloor-focused – its influences shifting from house to disco, from the perspiration-soaked post-punk funk to smooth 80s boogie, from sorrow and soothing to empowerment and resistance".

The Poland government is arguably one of the most conservative in Europe, recorded acts of homophobia happening on a weekly basis in the country, and there were also recorded incidents of police brutality. How systemic homophobia is can be read from the fact that a third of Polish towns have declared themselves “LGBT-free zones”. Guardian brings a story about Polish DJs and musicians fighting for the rights of the minority.

The seven siblings of the Kanneh-Mason family - Konya, Jeneba, Sheku, Braimah, Aminata, Mariatu, Isata - play classical music together, and now they've recorded their first album as a family, 'Carnival', which will be released by their record label Decca on 6 November. Written by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns, the musical suite of movements is dedicated to animals including lions, elephants and fish, because "we feel there should be more classical music aimed at children", as Isata says to the BBC.

“I am that person. The one that wasn’t supposed to make it out of Hell’s Kitchen, who was supposed to end up being a prostitute, a young mother at 16 years old, or addicted to drugs" - Alicia Keys says in a Guardian interview about her new album. "And what the fuck is a dream? A dream is a luxury, if you have to pay all these bills and put food on the table for your kids... All the songs I’ve ever written that have been considered empowering or uplifting, I’ve written them at my lowest point. Because I needed to remind myself: don’t forget that”.

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross won an Emmy for their score for HBO’s 'Watchmen', and now only lack a Tonny for EGOT status - they won an Academy Award for 'The Social Network' and a Grammy for their score for 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo', Deadline reports. British singer-songwriter Labrinth was honored for his song 'All for Us' from the finale of HBO’s 'Euphoria', Billboard reports. Composer Laura Karpman won her first prime-time Emmy in the documentary score category for 'Why We Hate', a six-part Discovery Channel series about hatred around the globe, Variety reports. All the nominees and winners - here.

An amusing article on the Messy Nessy blog about ABBA's outlandishly-designed stage-clothes. It's all about the money - according to the Swedish law regarding costumes, as long as the outfits were too impractical for everyday wear and couldn’t be worn outside a performance, they were tax-deductible. The legal loop hole thus encouraged ABBA's designer Owe Sandström to make ABBA’s costumes as colourful and unwearable as possible. And did he!

“What you’re about to embark on will be the greatest adventure of your young life” - Bruce Springsteen told the Boston College Class of 2024 via a Zoom call from his New Jersey home studio as the featured speaker of the school’s annual 'First Year Academic Convocation'. Springsteen continued - “You can waste it, you can half-ass your way through it, or you can absorb every minute of what you’re experiencing, and come out on the other end an individual of expanded vision, of intellectual vigor, of spiritual character and grace, fully prepared to meet the world again on its own terms”. Students also had some questions for Springsteen...

The majority of concerts is moving online, and hopefully, the number (and production quality) of these will grow, so Spotify is adjusting. This week the streaming service had added all those virtual concerts to its "On Tour" listings. Spotify is working on it in partnership with Songkick.

"Their hypnotic orchestral folk songs 'come howling after' an unfathomable god" - the Guardian writes about singer-sogwriter Anjimile's debut LP 'Giver Taker'. Paste Magazine says "Anjimile’s story is an uncommon one, but an uplifting one nonetheless: A trans person—in the midst of battling his own demons—excavates the most troubling parts of his past and ultimately seeks out catharsis". The Line of Best Fit says Anjimile "channels the hurt through extraordinary delicate songs where harmonies wrap around each other with a spectral quality, and the dripping rain of picked guitar strings decorate the walls".

The Beatles were falling apart as they were making their latest album 'Let It Be', and the new book 'The Beatles: Get Back' is going to tell the story of those last days, Guardian reports. It is drawn from over 120 hours of transcribed conversations from the band’s studio sessions. The book will be accompanied by Peter Jackson’s feature documentary of the same name. Both are coming out in August 2021. In related Beatles news, Canadian filmmaker Paul Saltzman has released a documentary 'Meeting The Beatles in India' about how he met the fab four at an ashram on the Ganges. Narrated by Morgan Freeman and produced by David Lynch, the film, among other things, contains rare images of the band taken by Saltzman. They are wistful vignettes of the rock stars in their prime, unguarded and relaxed, BBC reports.

Canadian indie-rock musician Rich Aucoin made a simply great video for his new song 'Walls' with a simple idea - he recreated 20 of the most iconic music videos of all time, including Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', Prince's 'When Doves Cry', Jamiroquai's 'Virtual Insanity', Beyonce's 'Single Ladies', Radiohead's 'Just', Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody', Alanis Morissette's 'Ironic', Run DMC & Aerosmith's 'Walk This Way' and other. At first, they're separate, but by the end of the video Beyonce ends up with OK Go, Madonna with the Beastie Boys etc.

Arcade Fire's Will Butler released 'Bethlehem', full of anger and energy, plenty of food in the video also; Still Corners' 'The Last Exit' is a big sounding simple folk-rock song; Tino Contreras is 96-year-old Mexican jazz veteran releasing an album full of new songs, 'El Sacrificio' is the promising teaser; pop-industrials Health released a haunting 'Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0'; Suuns combine noise and dance on 'Pray'; melodic doom metallers Fires in the Distance released their new album this week, 'Reflections in the Ice' is the stand-out track from it.

Kanye West has uploaded photos of his recording and publishing deals to Twitter, and is demanding to be released from his contracts, Variety reports. "I need every lawyer in the world to look at these," he told his followers, while referring to the music industry as "modern-day slavery". West says he won't release new music until he is released from his deals. PDF document of the contracts - here.

Pitchfork's writer had two surprises with Enya in the last year. The first: her music proved itself perfect in the time of isolation - "maybe it is because her atmospheric compositions are full of imagination, of openness, each note like a new horizon coming into focus. Maybe it is because her many-layered catalog is so sad and healing at once, or because it makes the complex work of being indefinitely alone sound easy". The second - list of musicians she has influenced: Weyes Blood, FKA twigs, Nicki Minaj, Grimes, Angel Olsen, Perfume Genius, Brandy, Blood Incantation...

Steve Earle and his band The Dukes will be recording an album of songs by his son Justin Townes Earle, singer-songwriter who died in August, Rolling Stone reports. The album is set for a January release to coincide with what would've been Earle jr's 39th birthday. Proceeds from the album will go to a trust for Justin's daughter, Etta St. James Earle.

Stanley Crouch, the lauded and fiery jazz critic, has died aged 74, NPR says in a lengthy and enjoyable article about the controversial and charismatic figure from the jazz world. Jazz Times re-published Crouch's article about racism in jazz, one of his most-read and controversial pieces.

Luke Combs was awarded the album of the year accolade for 'What You See Is What You Get' at the Country Music Awards. He also won at the Male artist of the year category. Entertainer of the year award was split between Thomas Rhett and Carrie Underwood - the first ever entertainment tie, Female artist of the year awards went to Maren Morris, while Dan + Shay won at the Duo of the year category. Old Dominion are group of the year, Billboard reports. A small step toward equality and reason has happened - Mickey Guyton performed at the show, as the first black woman to do so. List of nominees and winners - here.

Madonna will co-write and direct a movie about her rise to fame, with the help of Oscar-winning 'Juno' screenwriter Diablo Cody, Entertainment Weekly reports. The script is expected to chart Madonna's rise from Michigan, to the slums of New York City, to global superstardom - via songs such as 'Like A Virgin' and 'Vogue'. “The focus of this film will always be music. Music has kept me going and art has kept me alive" - Madonna said in an announcement of the movie.

Sufjan Stevens says 'Sugar' is "about the desire for goodness and purity", and the hypnotics quality of the song makes a case for it; Amanda Ong is a singer-songwriter on the rise, her beautiful voice promises a lot - 'Leave Me Alone'; it's hardly a new song, but Brandi Carlile's version on 'Mad World' sang from the bottom of her lungs ads a new dimension to it; Slowthai's 'Feel Away' is, well, different - it's gentle and mellow, with a video of James Blake singing from rapper's uterus!; Death Valley Girls sing for love and joy on 'Under the Spell of Joy'; Small Bills is a new project, made of rapper Elucid and producer the Lasso, their first single 'Safehouse' goes from afro-beat to funk, from discomfort and uncertainty.