Mike Noga, the Australian singer/songwriter and former drummer with celebrated alter rock band The Drones, has died at the age of 42, uDiscover Music reports. Noga and the Drones were outright stars of Australia’s independent music scene. Their place among the elite was confirmed when their April 2005 sophomore album 'Wait Long by the River and the Bodies of Your Enemies Will Float By' won the inaugural Australian Music Prize. After ten years, Noga left the band in 2014 to pursue a solo career. Two years later, in 2016, he released his critically acclaimed third solo set 'King'.

Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom are "floating with love and wonder" after "safe and healthy arrival" of their first child - a daughter named Daisy Dove Bloom. Perry's new album 'Smile' is released on Friday.

Elton John doesn't really like most of the pop songs nowadays - "there’s four or five writers on (a track). You look at most of the records in the charts – they’re not real songs. They’re bits and pieces", NME reports that Elton said to BBC Radio 6 Music. "It’s nice to hear someone write a proper song", he elaborated - "I like people who write songs. And there’s plenty of people that do but a lot of them don’t get played on the radio because they’re too sophisticated and we get songs made by a computer all the time and I’m not interested in that". The few that he does like are Father John Misty and singer/songwriter Conan Gray.

Iranian musician Mehdi Rajabian says he was arrested two weeks ago and is facing trial for working with female singers and dancers, BBC reports. His new album, which is not yet complete, is due to include female vocalists - who are effectively banned in Iran. Rajabian says a judge told him his latest project "encouraged prostitution". The 30-year-old has already been imprisoned twice on charges relating to his music.

Nas has teamed up with Pantone Color Institute to create “ULTRA BLACK By Nas”, a symbolic custom color inspired by the rapper and his 'King’s Disease' cut 'Ultra Black', honoring the Black community and representing the unification of people, All Hip Hop reports. “ULTRA BLACK is unapologetically Pro-Black and pro-humanity, with Nas reimagining the sad tones of the color black to represent its richness, complexity and profound beauty. The term not only honors the Black community as the life force of culture, but is also a symbol of the fortitude, power, legacy and interconnectedness of everyone in this world. If the color black absorbs all light, ULTRA BLACK is a representation of the people’s unification, highlighting Black joy and a bright future ahead" - Nas said in a statement.

The number of babies called Dua in the UK has doubled in 2019 compared with 2017, when Dua Lipa had her first UK number one, Mirror reports. The Office for National Statistics said 126 babies were called Dua in 2019, compared with 63 in 2017. Meanwhile, Alexa has fallen since the introduction of Amazon's Echo, down from 332 in 2016 to just 39 in 2019. Oliver and Olivia are still number one in England and Wales.

Riley Gale, frontman of the acclaimed Texas thrash metal band Power Trip, has tragically died at the age of 34, Blabbermouth reported. Since their formation in 2008, Power Trip have been among the leaders of a new wave of thrash metal, with a sound bridging thrash and hardcore punk. They’ve built up a substantial following, although they only released two albums, thanks in large part to their electrifying live shows. Countless musicians, labels, festival organizers, venues, writers, photographers, and others in the hardcore and metal communities have been paying tribute to Riley - Deafheaven, Code Orange, Creeping Death, Ice-T, Hatebreed, Thursday... Brooklyn Vegan picks out 5 great live Power Trip videos. Guardian lovingly said Gale "mixed philosophy, economics and genuine empathy into a searingly potent vision for a better world".

"'Mach's Hard Lemonade' favors brevity, and there's something very effective in our information-overload times about a 9-song, 22-minute album that never lets up and lends itself to replays" - Brooklyn Vegan stated about Mach-Hommy's new album. Both of the essential elements are upped on this one -"Mach-Hommy's production sounds bolder and richer than usual on this album, and his rapping is louder, clearer, and more attention-grabbing, but he hasn't abandoned the psychedelic, radically left-of-center sound that's made him such a cultishly loved artist in today's rap underground".

Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell will be the subject of a new biopic called 'Black Days'. Actor John Holiday, who previously played Carl Perkins in the 'Walk the Line' film, will take the lead role as the late grunge icon. In other Cornell related news, the latest edition of Mind Wide Open, the weekly mental-health series hosted by Chris Cornell’s daughter Lily Cornell Silver, had Eddie Vedder as the guest. Pearl Jam singer opened up about grief, empathy, and activism, while also reflecting on his fallen peers.

Sotheby will host its first-ever hip-hop auction featuring two prized items from The Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur, Reuters reports. The September auction features 120 lots and showcases iconic artifacts, contemporary and fine art, one-of-a-kind experiences, vernacular photography, vintage and modern fashion, historic and modern jewelry and luxury goods, and rare flyers and posters. The two headlining items are the crown worn and signed by Biggie Smalls from his epochal 1997 'King of New York' photo from his last-ever photoshoot and an archive of 22 handwritten love letters that Shakur penned to his high school sweetheart.

Cardi B has launched a line of waterproof merchandise on her online shop WAP-store to cash in on the success of her hit Megan Thee Stallion single. There is a transparent pink "WAP" raincoat ($125), which also comes in white and black, as well as black and pink "WAP' umbrellas ($25) and a "WAP" crop biker set ($40) that comes with a nylon spandex bra with the song title airbrushed on the front and bike shorts with the name on the butt...

Musical and creative impresario Will Coloan has made an AfroBeat remix of Stevie Wonder's 1976 song 'Black Man' that recollects many accomplishments from black men of all hues. In the accompanying Coloan features dozens of contemporary black men of distinction - Barack Obama, Denzel Washington, Jay-Z, Kobe Bryant, and many, many more (the video lists them all).

London-based virtual reality concerts company MelodyVR is buying Napster for the price tag of $70 million, TechCrunch reports. MelodyVR specializes in live virtual reality music experiences, and it plans on combining with Napster to create the "first ever music entertainment platform which combines immersive visual content and music streaming".

Nike has released a new ad paying tribute to the late basketball star Kobe Bryant, whose 42nd birthday would have been this week. The ad features a spoken word track by Kendrick Lamar which centres on Kobe’s legacy as a star who pushed others to “be better”.

UK venues have put forward a plan to reopen, which includes dancing in face masks, temperature checks at the door and bouncers patrolling the dancefloor to enforce social distancing, the Guardian reports. Nightclub owners say that 750,000 jobs are at risk because of the lockdown, unless the government provides them with support or greater certainty about when they can reopen. The clubbing industry pointed out that some of its venues are larger than pubs, restaurants and other venues that have been allowed to open, while they often recycle air more frequently with powerful mechanical ventilation systems.

Lauryn Hill provided the musical accompaniment for Louis Vuitton's spring-summer 2021 menswear show in Shanghai, which was captured on video for an accompanying video presentation. The black-and-white video finds Hill and her full band perform her contribution to the 'Queen & Slim' soundtrack, 'Guarding the Gates, as well as 'Everything Is Everything', 'Lost Ones', 'Ex-Factor', 'Black Rage', and the classic 'Doo Wop (That Thing)'.

Warner Bros. released the first trailer for Matt Reeves’ 'The Batman' set to Nirvana's 'Something in the Way'. Strings added to the Nirvana original, and the grandiose undertone in general make for an impressive trailer. Forthcoming re-imagining of the Batman stars Robert Pattinson as The Dark Knight, set in grey and realistic Gotham City. Zoe Kravitz is seen in the trailer as Catwoman.

Scientists from Leipzig have held three pop concerts last Saturday to investigate the risks posed by mass indoor events during the pandemic, CNN reports. About 1,500 healthy volunteers aged between 18 and 50 - only a third of the expected number - took part, but the head of the study from Halle University said he was "very satisfied" with how the event unfolded. The first of Saturday's three concerts aimed to simulate an event before the pandemic, with no safety measures in place. The second involved greater hygiene and some social distancing, while the third involved half the numbers and each person standing 1.5m apart. Singer-songwriter Tim Bendzko performed at all three successive gigs.

Korean boy band BTS has set a YouTube record with their new video 'Dynamite' with 101,1 million views in 24 hours after its releases last Friday, Variety reports. This marks the first video to achieve 100 million views in one day. More than three million fans also tuned in to watch the clip's live premiere - almost double the previous record, held by Blackpink's 'How You Like That'.

"Adidas has allowed the production of a shoe that is named after an archangel in Islam. This is highly offensive to the Muslim community" - a petition, started on Change.org, reads, pushing for new Kanye West shoes be taken off the market, All Hip Hop reports. West has recently dropped sneakers that bear the name of two Islamic angels of judgment and death. The Yeezy Boost 350 V2 Israfil is a shoe Adidas already has on its way to market, and the Yeezy Boost 350 V2 Asriel that should be released in September/October. The new petition demands cease of all sales and an apology.

Taylor Swift's eighth studio album, 'Folklore', spent a fourth consecutive week topping the Billboard 200 Albums Chart, marking the first time a woman's album had spent its first four weeks at No. 1 in nearly five years since Adele's third studio album '25', Billboard reports. 'Folklore' earned 101,000 equivalent album units in its fourth week. Rapper Young Dolph drops in Top 5 as 'Rich' Slave starts at No. 4 with 65,000 equivalent album units earned.

Justin Townes Earle, the award-winning singer-songwriter and son of Steve Earle, has died aged 38, Tennessean reports. The Nashville fixture, who was named after his father's friend and beloved songwriter Townes Van Zandt, won the Americana Music Honors & Awards new and emerging artist of the year in 2009. He released his first EP, 'Yuma', in 2007, and went on to deliver eight full-length LPs throughout his career. His last album, 'The Saint of Lost Causes', was released in 2019.

"The first thing you have to know about listening to music on an iPod is that your primary action is always listening to music...  Unlike my phone, I didn’t feel the need to bounce from song to podcast to YouTube video to NBA highlights on Twitter" - GQ writer says in favor of buying a digital player, well, an iPod preferably. It's the attitude towards music that changes with owning a player, rather than streaming it from somewhere - "it feels good to purchase music... and it also makes you feel more connected to your purchase. I was far less likely to bounce off an album after buying it... I’d rather have a collection of music that I feel connected to than all the music in the world".

A new U.K. study has found there was not a substantial difference in the spread of aerosols (tiny particles that are exhaled from the body and then float in the air) between talking and singing when done at a similar noise level, which is good news, of course. What did make a difference, though, was the volume of the voice, where singing or shouting at the loudest level possible could generate 30 times more aerosol, which is bad news for metal bands. BBC reports on the study.

Awich was born on Okinawa in the shadow of American military bases, where her starved grandfather stole food from. On the other hand, as Awich told Consequence of Sound, she loves the idea of America, which made for a "love-hate" relationship. She studied in the USA where she met her husband, who has shot and killed, and Awich was left with a child - and rap future in Japan. Awich - it stands for “Asia Wish Child" - raps in both English and Japanese - "it is easier for me to express aggressiveness and all of that stuff in English, it’s way, way easier. Japanese is very subtle. [For] depictions of scenery and stuff like that, the Japanese language is more sensitive".

There is one song that keeps being heard in the crowds at the protests in Belarus - 'Khochu Peremen' ('Want to Change') by the 1980s USSR rock band Kino (Cinema). Previously, it was sung in Moscow by protestors opposing Vladimir Putin in 2011, although its author Viktor Tsoi had no intention for it to become a political anthem, or for him to be a revolutionary figure, according to the BBC. He said it was a song about inner change.

Jack Sherman, the guitarist who appeared on the debut album of Red Hot Chili Peppers, has died at the age of 64, Louder reports. Sherman, who joined the band on their first US tour in 1984, also worked on future RHCP albums 'The Abbey Road EP' and 'Mother's Milk'. Sherman also worked with other prominent artists including Bob Dylan and George Clinton. "He was a unique dude and we thank him for all times good, bad and in between. Peace on the boogie platform" - a tweet on the RHCP's official account reads.

Okay Player wrote a short history of sex talk by black women in hip-hop, starting with Salt-N-Pepa, Lil’ Kim, Foxy Brown, Missy Elliott, and Trina, going to contemporaries like Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion. "Their ministry is for those who want to hear their words, which often incites a camaraderie between free-loving ride-or-dies shaking their asses on one another while rapping along in electrifying praise".

God is in the TV presents two viable and fairer alternative platforms to Spotify - Sonstream and Resonate. Sonstream is streaming start-up offering an alternative user-centric and musician focused model with a basic set up and a pretty simple site. Resonate is a streaming service cooperative owned by the people that use it – musicians, indie labels, fans and developers.

Pine Barons released a catchy indie rock 'Sputter'; RZA and Ghostface Killah are in classic Wu-Tang mood with 'Fighting for Equality'; some big careers started off with covers - new hardcore strength Gulch might be on that same path with 'Sin in my Heart'; Open Mike Eagle went groovy-jazzy in 'Bucciarati'; Thou and Emma Ruth Rundle released melodic doom goth 'Ancestral Recall'; Mina Tindle, Kate Stables, Emma Broughton, Melissa Laveaux re-sang Nina Simone's '22nd Century'; Carcass are back with a metal banger 'The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue', their first new song in 7 years.