Independent music festivals in Britain are at risk of collapsing after coronavirus forced many to cancel their 2020 editions, a new report by the Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) has warned. Some 92% of AIF members - including Gloucestershire’s 2000trees, London’s Meltdown and Sheffield’s Tramlines - warn they face ruinous costs as a result of cancelled events, with the vast majority (98.5%) not covered by insurance for cancellation as a result of coronavirus, the Guardian reports.

Jimmy Fallon has gathered a dozen artists for the latest edition of his "classroom instruments" segment for an elaborate virtual performance of Bowie/Queen song 'Under Pressure'. Tonight Show host, Panic at the Disco's Brendon Urie and The Roots covered the ‘80s classic with (mostly) home “home instruments" - Questlove played the butter knife/wine glass, bottle, jar and bowl, Black Thought worked the frosting spatula and toaster, and Dave Guy was on frisbee - and the song turned out GRRREAT!!! Watch below.

MLB team the Texas Rangers have announced the largest-scale U.S. drive-in concert series yet, Concert In Your Car. The concerts will take place in the parking lot of Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. Not the biggest music stars, but that's not the point right now: Eli Young Band are about to play on 6/4, Whiskey Mykers on 6/5, Pat Green on 6/6, and Josh Abbott Band & Kevin Fowler on 6/7. Strict social distancing rules will be applied. Some trouble with week’s Travis McCready concert scheduled to take place this Friday, May 15, in Fort Smith, Arkansas, KFSM 5News reports. Governor Asa Hutchinson issued cease & desist order, because McCready is to soon - Hutchinson has given the okay for live events to return on the following Monday, the 18th.

The "brave" people of Welch NHS have made an "extraordinary" rendition of 'Bridge Over Troubled Water', song's author Paul Simon has said. Medics, construction workers and council staff were filmed for the performance at the temporary coronavirus field hospital built in the north Wales resort of Llandudno.

Rihanna has made her debut appearance on The Sunday Times Rich List of UK's richest musicians, with an estimated fortune of £468 million. She claims the third place, just above Elton John and Mick Jagger, and below Andrew Lloyd Webber and Paul McCartney. Although she's successful musician, Rihanna's earnings are largely due to the Fenty Beauty cosmetics brand, where her reported 15% stake is worth £351m. Rihanna's appearance on the list is somewhat a surprise, because very few people knew she was living in London. The youngest on the list is Ed Sheeran with an estimated net worth of £200m.

What will the future bring for the audio deepfakes - AI-generated imitations of human voices, Pitchfork tries to find answers in an analysis of Jay-Z deepfakes. YouTube channel called Voice Synthesis posted several Jay-Z deepfakes in April - Shakespeare’s 'To Be, Or Not to Be' soliloquy from 'Hamlet', Billy Joel’s 'We Didn’t Start the Fire', and a decade-old 4chan meme. They were removed two days after due to a copyright claim, but soon they returned. The software has to be “trained” with audio samples and text transcripts, and the actual voice is used in the creation but from there it’s all ones and zeros from the AI, so it's a legal grey zone. Musicians and fans could potentially be grappling with the weird consequences of AI voice manipulations long into the future - the P is guessing, with high probability actually.

In today’s world of fear and unease and social distancing, it's hard to imagine sharing experiences like these ever again. I don’t know when it will be safe to return to singing arm in arm at the top of our lungs, hearts racing, bodies moving, souls bursting with life. But I do know that we will do it again, because we have to. It’s not a choice. We’re human. We need moments that reassure us that we are not alone - Dave Grohl, The Atlantic.

“Synth-pop” is less about the "synth" and more about the "pop", a product of movements and musicians trying to democratize musical performance - Treblezine argues in favor of the often disputed genre. It presents synth-pop with a chronological selection of 50 essential, and great, tracks - from Jean-Michel Jarre, over Prince and New Order, to Sharon van Etten.

Conspiracy theories have become, in the last 20-ish years, the exact opposite of what they started as - a tool to blur the truth. 'Wind of Change' podcast by the Pineapple Street Studios, is great if you take it less as a serious theory, and more as an entertaining listen. So, the theory is this - the famous metal ballad 'Wind of Change' wasn't actually written by the Scorpions, the real authors are - the CIA! The man behind the podcast is best-selling author and New Yorker investigative journalist Patrick Radden Keefe, who explores a rumor he heard from a source within the CIA itself. Over the course of the miniseries, Keefe delves into a secret history of propaganda hidden in pop music, talking to former CIA officers and music industry legends, as well as doing on-the-ground reporting in four countries to find out if this really was another example of a U.S. government attempt at soft power through pop culture. Listen to the miniseries here. Scorpions frontman Klaus Meine is seemingly amused by the idea: “After all these year, to hear a story like this is really something. I’ve heard stories connected with 'Wind Of Change', but the CIA? It's an interesting story, definitely. It's a good idea for a movie. That would be cool". Vulture says the podcast is a "thrilling ride".

"Denmark has already begun putting on drive-in gigs. In Spain, they hope to introduce seated outdoor shows of up to 200 and 30-capacity indoor shows. Arena bands are considering 10-day residencies at club venues, playing multiple shows throughout the afternoon and evening to revolving maximum quarantine capacity crowds. There’s even talk of running limited capacity festivals in the not-too-distant future... Coronavirus gigs sound like ‘VIP experience’... Every gig will be one big golden circle, with added table service. So bring on music’s new normal – I’m ready for the best of times in the worst of times" - NME's Mark, My Words is looking forward to the new live music normal.

The 1959 Martin D-18E guitar used by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain during the band’s famous MTV Unplugged in New York concert is for sale at an auction, with a starting estimate of $1m, CNN reports. The guitar featured in the grunge group’s performance in November 1993, five months before Cobain’s death at the age of 27. His guitar comes with the original hard-shell case, with three baggage claim ticket stubs still attached to the handle, along with an Alaska Airlines sticker affixed to the case. The storage compartment contains Cobain’s half-used pack of guitar strings, picks and a suede “stash bag”.

“Drugs can be dangerous but they can also be hilarious” - is the idea behind the new documentary 'Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics' where numerous musicians share stories about taking psychedelic drugs. Among those are Ad Rock (Beastie Boys), ASAP Rocky, The Grateful Dead‘s Bill Kreutzmann, Sting, Donovan, Reggie Watts, Jim James (My Morning Jacket). It was directed by Donick Cary, who is a comedy writer who’s written for 'The Simpsons', 'Silicon Valley', 'Parks & Recreation', 'The New Girl', 'Bored to Death', hence the original idea... Watch the trailer below.

Blogger Dave Strickson did an A-MA-ZING job - he made an alphabetized roundup of all the Peel Sessions he found on YouTube. There’s nearly a thousand, including Nirvana, Pulp, Nick Drake, The Fugees, Sonic Youth, David Bowie and The Spiders From Mars, Joy Division and New Order, The Smiths, Roxy Music, The Cure, Siouxsie & The Banshees, The Fall, Echo & The Bunnymen, Hole, Jack White, Elvis Costello, Cocteau Twins, The Jesus & Mary Chain, The Wedding Present, The Raincoats, T-Rex, Buzzcocks, Can, Billy Bragg, Fairport Convention, The Breeders, The Kinks, The Specials, The Slits, Thin Lizzy.

Event Safety Alliance has published a Reopening Guide, based on suggestions by 400 tour promoters, managers, Ticketmaster employees, and caterers. It's a 29-page guidebook. The essential guidelines:

• Hand-washing every hour, as well as after sneezing, mopping, smoking, eating, drinking and other select activities
• 4 square meters necessary per unrelated group of people
• Required masks
• Sanitizing door handles, sink faucets, soap dispensers, elevator buttons, phones, water fountains, vending machines, trash bins and computers
• Stagger lines into venues so patrons don't have to cluster in lines
• Temperature screening for every customer
• Clear protective shields for will-call and box-office windows

People will leave a comment on SoundCloud, maybe send a message, and do a repost, but that’s a very narrow spectrum of interaction among communities of creatives. Where do people share their work-in-progress music? Where do artists share their excitement about releases of other artists in their community? Where do people ask for feedback and create back-and-forths around creative expression? Instagram - Music / Tech / Future says in an analysis of a shift in user's behavior. A way for SoundCloud to get back into center - AI.

A great article by General Intelligence about music generated by artificial intelligence, so good it's nearly impossible to tell the difference. What these algorithms do is they analyze large collections of an artist’s songs, find patterns in the audio data that humans would correlate with hallmarks of music style, and then use those patterns to generate new audio. One such is Jukebox, an algorithmic system able to generate music - complete with lyrics - in the style of famous musicians like Elvis and Frank Sinatra.

“Everyone send your thoughts to Slowthai. Fuck knows where he is, but God bless the boy… fucking nightmare” - was The 1975 Matty Healy's reaction to Slowthai's shenanigans at NME's Awards, 'Enemy' is rapper's own take on it, not something everybody's gonna agree with, but he does take a legitimate stand; Arthur Gunn played a beautiful cover of Bon Iver's 'Hey Ma' at 'American Idol'; Naomi Lien's 'Don’t Need None' is a, well, decent R'n'B song, with a video made with a budget of enthusiasm, no banknotes exchanged; the title says it all really in 'Raincheck Summer' by Lillian Frances.

The latest episode of Talkhouse Podcast with Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt and Pulp's Jarvis Cocker is dedicated to “mis-shapes, mistakes, misfits”. The two songwriters talk about reunions with their showbiz fathers who had abandoned them; the bad omen that nearly caused Jarvis to quit music in the year 2000; why Stephin’s new sexual fetish might be a “one time only” experience...

Classical critic Alex Ross has made a list of his ten favorite books on music. (via Twitter). It goes from "the book that affected me more perhaps than any other: Thomas Mann's monumental, bone-chilling, strangely exalting composer-novel, 'Doctor Faustus'" to an easier read - "'Out of the Vinyl Deeps', a wide-ranging collection of the incisive, impassioned, posture-free pop-music criticism of Ellen Willis".

"He’s a delinquent teenage alcoholic who gets sober, but becomes gripped by addictions once again, with his raging alcoholism assuaged by the short-lived peace of heroin. Lanegan’s prodigious drug habit turns him into less of a musician and more of a dealer" - Guardian says in its recommended read, 'Sing Backwards and Weep' memoir by Mark Lanegan. "It might be a spoiler to reveal how Lanegan’s salvation eventually comes and who, unexpectedly, foots the bill for his rehab. This is a narrative packed with surprises, most not of the good kind".

Soul legend Betty Wright passed away Sunday morning in her Miami home after losing her battle with cancer, NPR reports. Wright started singing at the age of two as a member of her family's gospel group, Echoes of Joy, she released her first solo album when she was just 14 years old, and she shot to fame at the age of 18 with her classic song 'Clean Up Woman'. A powerful, soulful vocalist, she was one of the first singers to use the "whistle register", later utilised by Mariah Carey and Ariana Grande. As a writer and producer, she also created hits for artists including Bob Marley, Gloria Estefan and Joss Stone. Tributes are pouring in...

There probably aren't gonna be any big concerts in 2020, so the live music industry is thinking about ways to make up the loss. Variety shared some of the ideas for the future of shows - pay-per-view tours that are “geo-blocked” or limited to a specific area; streaming concerts into a separate, socially distanced venue, possibly with food, drinks, merch and the usual concert amenities; virtual merchandise sold during the stream...

Since the beginning of lockdown on Monday, March 23 in the UK, Richard Dawson and Sally Pilkington have been releasing albums as Bulbils, at the rate of almost one album a day. Their living room in Newcastle has been converted into a makeshift studio, with synths, vocoders, keyboards, guitars and drum machines; the music is, for the most part, hypnotic, lo-fi, beautiful and ambient. Pilkington told Quietus it's "kind of music we wouldn’t normally share, which feels like quite a personal thing. A lot of it’s quite rough and the kind of thing that’s quite unprocessed. It’s quite intimate in a way". Find all the albums at Bandcamp.

Portland, Seattle (King County), New Orleans, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Austin, Albuquerque and Chicago have joined the Music Cities Together pilot program Reopen Every Venue Safely, which aims to “develop and disseminate action plans and budgets rooted in a hyper-pragmatic understanding of the challenges ahead” in the COVID-19 era, Variety reports. REVS hopes to share data and “best practices” tips across the eight cities between city officials and venue owners in an effort to best strategize ways to effectively ensure venues can open safely in a coming era where social distancing may be the new normal, temperature checks at the door might be a potential mandated safety check, and city-imposed reduced capacity numbers might also become a reality.

Country superstar Kenny Chesney tops the Billboard 200 chart for the ninth time with his latest album 'Here and Now', equaling Garth Brooks' record for the most No. 1s among country acts in the chart’s history, according to Billboard. Chesney's set earned 233,000 equivalent album units in the U.S., with the vast majority of it being actual album sales - 222,000. Drake's surprise-released 'Dark Lane Demo Tapes' opens at No. 2 on the new Billboard 200 chart, with 223,000 equivalent album units earned. And a curiosity from this week's Billboard - post-hardcore band Dance Gavin Dance charted at No. 14 without the help of any physical sales; their new album 'Afterburner' ended up receiving the equivalent of 23,211 album sales from streaming in its first week, Loudwire reports.

"There is a cathartic religiosity to the music of Sex Swing. During this era of sorrow and anxiety, Sex Swing remind us of the restorative powers of rock" - the Quietus says in a review of new album by the psych-rock band. "The guitars erupt, the rhythms sputter out, the volume is maximised... It’s an uplifting record that taps into the mysticism at the core of much experimental musics" - the Q adds. The band - a supergroup of sorts, with members living in different parts of the world - explains in an interview how they function.

Video editors Real Big Boys have created a funny short video masterpiece that sees a bunch of seals as they belt out the melody of Seal's song 'Kiss From a Rose'. The seals are singing somewhat in key. Seal joins them in the end.

Little Richard, one of the pioneers of the first wave of rock’n’roll, has died at age 87, Rolling Stone reports. At the height of his career he released a run of singles that were among the wildest and most flamboyant of the rock’n’roll era – 'Tutti Frutti', 'Long Tall Sally', 'Rip It Up', 'The Girl Can’t Help It', 'Lucille', 'Keep A-Knockin’' and 'Good Golly, Miss Molly'. He was also known for his outrageous performance style - eyes lined with mascara, and brightly coloured clothes.

Guitarist and singer The Tallest Man on Earth played some beautiful covers in his weekly livestream yesterday - The National‘s 'Pink Rabbits' performed on synthesizer, The Strokes‘ 'Someday', John Lennon‘s 'Jealous Guy', Daniel Johnston‘s 'Walking the Cow', Lucinda Williams‘ 'Greenville', Tom Waits‘ Take It With Me', traditional folk song 'The Moonshiner', and a couple of others. Watch below (80 minutes).

The newest episode of battles curated by music producers Swizz Beatz and Timbaland will feature neo-soul artists Erykah Badu and Jill Scott - the first female superstars in the series (previously it was RZA vs. DJ Premier, Swizz Beatz vs. Timbaland, T-Pain vs. Lil Jon, Mannie Fresh vs. Scott Storch, and Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds vs. Teddy Riley). All Hip Hop is sure the battle will be "epic" since Badu and Scott "are the best of the best". It's on Saturday, May 9 - at 7 p.m. Philadelphia time, 6 p.m. Dallas time, 1 a.m. Barcelona time.