The music world is in the middle of a process of kicking out the word "urban" as a denominator used to describe music of black origin, because, as Tyler, the Creator said, "urban" is “a politically correct way to say the N-word to me”. Grammys joined the trend, but it turned more than clumsy. A category formerly known as Best Urban Contemporary Album lost "urban" and became Best Progressive R&B, with Latin Pop Album becoming Best Latin Pop Or Urban Album. Vulture says these changes are just simply wrong - "rectifying these long-standing and persistent issues requires much more than switching a few words around, and thinking deeper than semantics... Until the Recording Academy takes stock of its house, the Grammys will remain a holistically damaged and toxic institution". NPR is much more direct - "On the surface, these seem like clumsy name changes... But their introduction points to larger, systemic issues for an organization that has long struggled to acknowledge and celebrate music made by artists of color".

The Flaming Lips performed on Stephen Colbert’s 'Late Show' last night, playing 'Race For The Prize' from their 1999 album 'The Soft Bulletin', while every member of the band and everybody in the audience was inside giant inflatable bubbles, a staple from the group’s live shows.

Fulltone, the guitar and bass effects company behind the popular OCD pedal, received heavy backlash after company's founder, Mike Fuller, went on an offensive social media tirade slamming the ongoing protests for justice following George Floyd's murder at the hands of police. "What is this like night 4 of looting with 100% impunity. The pussy Mayor and Governor don’t give a shit about small businesses, and it’s never been more clear" he wrote in a since-deleted post. After this post, music retail store Guitar Center announced they won't do business with Fulltone anymore, and numerous musicians - members of Blink-182, Indigo Girls, etc. - said they are planning to stop using Fulltone's equipment.

LRAD can be used to generate extremely loud high-frequency sounds specifically intended for the dispersal of crowds, which can also cause pain, disorientation, and injury to those exposed to them, Pitchfork explains and advises how to defend yourself from it. Use earplugs or safety ear muffs with the highest dB-reduction rating you can find; look for places to shelter - sound waves deflect off dense and rigid surfaces, so brick and concrete walls are a good bet; in case of no earplugs and shelter, go left or right if the LRAD is in front of you, rather than just backing up - the sound is a beam and walking perpendicularly to the direction of that beam helps.

U.S. residents have listened to an average of 11.1% more country since mid-March, and country music streaming climbed 22.4% in the final full week of May. Bloomberg explains: some have argued it is comfort food at a time when people are craving any form of succor; an executive at Pandora, the online radio service, noted country music is a perfect complement to drinking (alcohol sales have soared during the pandemic); country fans are learning to stream.

Resident Advisory has a long read about a new scene emerging in Tokyo, with people coming from a musical background engaging in cultural, social, and political activism, with musical means - "this network of artists and activists have disparate backgrounds and are associated with widely different music styles. They are all committed to their own separate projects while organically overlapping and staying connected".

"This song represents frustration and aggression but also knowledge of self and eagerness to nullify in the burning hunger in my soul" - Cambatta says about his new song 'Bones of Osiris'; Kenyan rapper MC Yallah has teamed up with Irish DJ and producer Eomac for a new EP 'Mama Waliwamanyii', a wild and groovy thing; Starlight Girls released a new EP 'Entitled' of goth/indie.

The Black Music Coalition, a newly formed organization comprised of Black music industry executives from the UK, have published an open letter calling for immediate action to end systemic racism within the music industry, IQ Magazine reports. The signatories made five requests in the open letter: mandatory anti-racism and unconscious bias training for all non-Black staff; setting aside an amount of money each year to support Black organisations and projects; career development opportunities for Black staff and addressing the lack of Black staff in senior positions; replacing the term ‘urban music’ with ‘Black music’; establishing a task force that reviews the company’s diversity and equality goals.

An artificial intelligence bot was programmed to take in all of Metallica's lyrics using Markov Chain (a computer model for a certain type of probability), and wrote an old school Metallica-styled song 'Deliverance Rides', Loudwire reports. YouTuber Funk Turkey wrote the music for it, in style on '...And Justice For All' and 'Black Album', and sang the lyrics, here's some: "I can’t believe the death of day/The dark of wretched pain/Where I see the one thousand deaths/Never free in vain".

Iconic comedy duo released the official trailer for their new movie 'Bill & Ted Face the Music', and Arcade Fire's Win Butler can be seen in that short clip playing a "member of the future council". He's seen for a few moments wearing a wide-brimmed hat, and he doesn't speak, which all makes him look kinda funny. 'Bill & Ted Face the Music' hits theaters on August 21st. The movie follows now-middle-aged William “Bill” S. Preston, Esq. (Alex Winter) and Theodore “Ted” Logan (Keanu Reeves) as they’re tasked with penning an original song to save the world.

WiZink Center in the Spanish capital, Madrid, announced they have confirmed several artists for paid livestreamed concerts that will be performed before at least some fans inside the building, Pollstar reports. The performance will be recorded with at least six television cameras, usually intended for sporting events — including stationary cameras, polecams and rail cams — that offer different perspectives of what is happening on stage. Concert industry publication also reports about recovery plans for live music sectors in Australia and New Zealand. Live Performance Australia unveiled June 4 an ambitious A$345 million plan to restart and rebuild the industry. New Zealand’s live sector applauded the government’s new NZ$175 million arts & music COVID-19 recovery package.

The UK party scene is rebellious, diverse and decentralised by its nature, including groups of hedonists, hippies, crusties, punks, anarchists, communists, and conspiracy theorists – all of which have little regard for the rules enforced by the police - but largely they have chosen to abide the guidance given on COVID-19. Not all, as Mixmag reports - several illegal raves have been held across the country despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In a joint statement from two party crews, the organizers say that “free parties are about defying bad laws... That’s why we do squat parties - to give each other a sense of our collective power and help defy bad laws". 8sided blog announces The Road Rave, first ever US drive-in rave party.

OneZero has an amazing article about scammers who are gaming Spotify with fake artist features, in order to inflate their Spotify streaming numbers. This is how it works: First, the scammer uploads a song to Spotify using a third-party site. When filling out the track’s information, they add a popular artist as “featured” (when they are, in fact, not involved with the song at all). The last step is automatic - Spotify’s algorithm places the song in prime spots across the platform. The goal: to rack up streams and money, of course.

The Dalai Lama has announced 'Inner World', an album of teachings and mantras set to music by the famous sitar player Anoushka Shankar. The 11-track album arrives July 6, which is also the Dalai Lama’s 85th birthday. The spiritual leader told Associated Press music can help people in a way that he can’t - "it can transcend differences and return us to our true nature and our good-heartedness”. Proceeds from 'Inner World' will benefit the Mind & Life Institute as well as Social, Emotional and Ethical Learning.

Pitchfork has gathered videos that show the many ways that music is being used in protests against police brutality and racism across the USA and around the world; watch here. In similar news, NPR made a partial record of music released in the past week answering this historic moment.

Wuhan is frequently cited as China’s punk rock capital, as it was the COVID-19 capital of the world at the start of the year. Now the quarantine is over in the central China region, but the concerts remain banned. The Diplomat reports from the city about music venues that don't play music, bands that aren't playing, not even writing music - seemingly quarantine isn't inspiring, it's just bleak...

Independent Brooklyn metal club Saint Vitus started a COVID-19 relief on Kickstarter, raising 12 times more than they asked for, according to Rolling Stone. “Saint Vitus Stays Home: Help beloved Brooklyn venue & metal bar Saint Vitus survive the COVID-19 closure” campaign listed a slew of rewards for potential donors, ranging from $5 stickers and $30 limited-edition tees to $75 signed photos and $100 drum lessons with Thursday’s Tucker Rule; top donors could snag a year’s worth of free shows. The campaign’s goal was set at $15,000, but by the end of campaign on Saturday, June 6 Saint Vitus had raised over $130,000.

Dan Franklin's latest book 'Heavy: How metal changes how we see the world' goes broadly and tries to position metal music within the cultural context. Guardian says it "situates heaviness within the 'iron-rich bloodline running through the bedrock of culture' . . . a book that pulls off the trick of offering something to both passionate fans and neophytes", with Sunday Times saying it "opens an ornate portal into a murky subculture, illuminating the marginalia as well as the big beasts". The publisher: "It gives shape and meaning to the terrible beauty of metal". The author made a playlist to listen to while reading it. Music Journalism Insider has an interview with Franklin.

Cherie Hu has made a list of all the board members and C-Suite executives across the top three record labels (Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment) and their biggest imprints, as well as the top two concert promoters (Live Nation and AEG), to see what is the percentage of Black people among them. There are 61 board members and C-Suite executives on her list. 53 of them are white, and only five of them - or 8% of the total - are Black: Jon Platt (Sony), Nadia Rawlinson (Live Nation), Maverick Carter (Live Nation), Jeffrey Harleston (Universal), and Kevin McDowell (AEG), Hu wrote on her Music & Water blog. She then expanded her scope to include President and Executive Vice President (EVP) roles and label imprints as well, and the percentage improved slightly - the total number of executives increased to 121 people. 92 of them are white, while 22 (around 18% of the total) are Black.

MusicMap blog has announced that they have now written about independent artists from every single country on the planet. To celebrate becoming the first music site to achieve the feat of featuring all 195 independent sovereign nations in the world, they've put together a playlist containing a track from every one of them, in alphabetical order from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. There's Turkish psychedelia, Ugandan footwork, Vincy dancehall and Micronesian hip-hop there.

"Hip-hop has always spoken out on police brutality. But more businesses have partnered with hip-hop in recent years. Those companies have felt the pressure to contribute to the same culture that’s making them rich. It’s one of many factors that accelerated the shift in response to this crisis" - Trapital argues about the power hip-hop has come to possess now. The two main reasons why hip-hop became the dominant culture, Trapital says -empowerment and social media.

GoGo Penguin "grew up in the era of techno and drum and bass, and have cannily adapted the rush of electronic music to a traditional acoustic lineup of piano, double bass and drums" The Observer writes in a review of electro-jazz trio's intense yet relaxing and gentle new album.

Colin Stetson has been making movie scores for a few years now, his latest, 'Barkskins' stands out as the richest and the most haunting. National Geographic's drama series investigates the subject of the deforestation of the New World from the arrival of English and French colonists.

Laura Marling hosted "the most authentic and exclusive live music event we’ve seen so far in the age of coronavirus. Held in an empty Union Chapel in London, the gig is ticketed, geo-locked to fans in the UK and Europe, and brings with it the delicious buzz of exclusivity and climax that makes live music so special" - NME wrote in a review of singer-songwriter's exclusive live stream. "The production values are simply exquisite, with 360 degree cameras intimately swirling around Marling... her cut-glass vocals spine-tingling throughout (turns out beautiful old chapels have better acoustics than bedrooms or living rooms) and transmitted wonderfully by the pop-up mixing desk set up in a truck outside the venue... More important than anything, though, the gig feels like an event".

Pussy Riot have released ‘1312’, “an international anthem against police brutality”, inspired by the 2019 protesters in Chile and released in solidarity with people across the world protesting the murder of George Floyd. Pussy Riot are joined here by Argentinian artists Parcas, Dillom, and Muerejoven, in a call to arms for those who are showing extreme bravery and strength in the face of increasingly violent abuse by police officers. The song is accompanied by an animated video from Vladimir Storm. They have also released a manifesto against police violence.

Lady Gaga held a speech about Black Lives Matter movement and protests for graduates during YouTube’s virtual “Dear Class of 2020" commencement celebration, Billboard reports. "You are watching what is a pivotal moment in this [country’s] evolution...change will happen and it will be for the better” - Lady Gaga told the graduates. But it won't happen by itself - "the people who are going to make this change happen are listening to this speech right now. You are the seeds that will grow into a new and different forest that is far more beautiful [than the one we live in right now]”.

In recognition of National Gun Violence Awareness Day, Pearl Jam released the uncensored version of their 1992 video for 'Jeremy', one of their most chilling and affecting, and popular songs, based on the real-life suicide of high school student Jeremy Wade Delle, who shot himself in front of his classmates in January 1991. The uncensored version includes the haunting final scene with Jeremy putting a gun in his mouth. “The increase in gun violence since the debut of ‘Jeremy’ is staggering” Pearl Jam wrote in an accompanying social media post, adding - “We can prevent gun deaths whether mass shootings, deaths of despair, law enforcement, or accidental,” the band added".

One of the most powerful record labels in the US, Republic Records will stop using the word "urban" to describe music of black origin. The company, which is home to Drake, Ariana Grande, The Weeknd, Nicki Minaj, Post Malone and Taylor Swift, says it will no longer use the term to describe "departments, employee titles and music genres". "We encourage the rest of the music industry to follow suit," it added. Republic didn't announce any other term to replace it with. The term is often considered to be a generalisation that marginalizes music by black artists.

Fans of K-pop superstars BTS have matched a $1m donation by the group to the Black Lives Matter movement, CBS reports. On Saturday Bit Hit Entertainment, which manages BTS, said the band had donated $1m to the Black Lives Matter movement. Once word got out BTS fans, who call themselves the ARMY, started to trend the hashtag #MatchAMillion on Twitter, to raise the same amount again. Within the first 24 hours the collection had passed $817,000.

Lady Gaga scores her sixth No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 with the chart-topping debut of 'Chromatica', sold in 274,000 equivalent album units, the biggest week for any album by a woman in 2020, although she ceased promotion due to nationwide unrest over George Floyd's death, Billboard reports. 'Chromatica' album sales comprise 205,000, SEA units total 65,000 (equating to 87.16 million on-demand streams of the set’s tracks in the week ending June 4) and TEA units equal a little more than 4,000. Also new at the top 10 on Billboard 200 are Jimmy Buffet who landed at No. 2 with 'Life on the Flip Side' - earned 75,000 equivalent album units, and Run The Jewels with 'RTJ40, bowing at No. 10 - 38,000 equivalent album units earned.

California gangsta rapper Drakeo the Ruler this week released his new album 'Thank You for Using GTL', a project recorded through a prison phone over the span of two weeks. The rapper was acquitted of murder in July of 2019, but the district attorney's office used his rap lyrics as proof to connect him to illegal activities. The 26-year-old transformed GTL, the inmate telecommunications system contracted by Los Angeles County, into his studio and created a project with his producer JOOGSZN. Passion of the Weiss calls it "miraculous, hard to listen to, perhaps indefinitely challenging as fighting the Los Angeles Police State becomes trendy enough for Santa Monica".