An amusing article in the Vice about how joggers prefer bad music while running - a landmark example coming from Haile Gebrselassie, the Ethiopian runner who broke the 10,000 meter record while 'Scatman' was playing. "Music you can easily synchronize with is also beneficial to quite some people - it can help you to maintain a steady pace, which is beneficial, but it also has a sort of psychological effect of feeling as if you are supported by the music in a way" - dr. Edith Van Dyck, a musicologist, explains the science behind this. Dr. Jasmin C. Hutchinson, who studied music's effect on running, also said that "beat perception is a pretty low order brain function", and the brain's bandwidth is being used up by the act of running, possibly unable to process double entendres or themes self-actualization.

lectronic Beats made a selection of seven films and documentaries about the international dance music scene, and the people behind it - about the techno scene of reunified Berlin, the roots of Belgian dance music, Taiwanese Y2K club culture, year-and-a-half partying around Warsaw, etc.

In the early 1400s, English composer John Cooke composed 'Stella celi', referencing the Black Plague which wiped out half of Europe, NPR wrote in an article about classical compositions inspired by epidemics throughout history. Johann Sebastian Bach wrote 'Cantata No. 25' in 1723, just a year after the great plague of Marseille, France ended, leaving over 100,000 people dead. American composer John Corigliano wrote his 'Symphony No. 1', sometimes referred to as the 'AIDS Symphony', as a heart-on-sleeve elegy for the many friends Corigliano lost to HIV/AIDS in the 1980s; the disease took 32 million lives by now. Coronavirus is deadly but inspirational as well - composer Lisa Bielawa is writing a choral work 'Broadcast from Home', built on testimonials the composer is collecting via social media from individuals in self-isolation or self-quarantine; a "virtual" orchestra and chorus of about 25 musicians from around the country are recording their own parts at home and sending them to Bielawa to stitch together.

The big lockdown is changing what Americans are streaming these days, Quartz reports - the R'n'B singer Romeo Santos saw the largest dip of about 25%, followed by rapper Daddy Yankee with a 24% dip, and pop-metal collective Slipknot with a 23% fall (beginning of March compared to the beginning of April). On the other side, there's Kidz Bop, a band that makes versions of pop hits sung by children with lyrics modified for kids, who saw a jump of about 10%, with singer-songwriters Jack Johnson (performing children's music occasionally) and Mad DeMarco rising 9%. In genres, Latino saw the biggest dip of 26%, followed by rap which fell 20%, pop fell 17%, dance 13%, rock 9%, jazz 7%, reggae 6%. Religious music fell 5,6%, R'n'b' fell 4,8%, and country music 0,2%. Three genres saw a rise in streams in the US - classical was up 0,3%, folk 1,7%, with children's music being the biggest gainer - 9,7%.

Weird Al Yankovic's parody music seems ancient, but a great text in the New York Times about Yankovic's show - "a parody concert felt like a category error, like confusing a mirror for a window", made it so fun - "It felt less like a traditional concert than a Broadway musical crossed with a comedy film festival crossed with a tent revival". When it finished, the journalist decided "Weird Al Yankovic was a full-on rock star, a legitimate performance monster. He was not just a parasite of cultural power but — somehow, improbably - a source of it himself". Although a parody is essentially a joke, which lasts as long as a laugh, Weird Al's joke still endures, 40 years on.

Kidz Bop is an American brand of compilation albums featuring children singing contemporary pop songs, with an important difference - the lyrics are made kid-appropriate changing explicit lyrics to more decent ones. How does exactly Kidz Bop change lyrics? Take this quiz and find out.

Professor Robert Gjerdingen from Northwestern University has launched a website collecting thousands of pages of classical music lessons used in the Italian and French conservatories of the 18th and 19th centuries.

"The mutant jazz six-piece’s new record is the album of tomorrow, a real cold bath of a disc... One of the most fun and instantly gratifying albums of the year" - the Quietus writes in a review of Melt Yourself Down's new album '100% Yes'. Plenty of it in there: "swaggering and sweltering pop tunes", "virtuistic sax", "beefy drums", "highly danceable", "purest of escapist experiences ", "the most joyful"...

Not all streamed or downloaded music needs to be of low quality - Rolling Stone offers advice on how to get the high-quality resolution. First, you need a good digital analog converter (DAC) - it’s the component that converts digital files into sound. It's there in computers, tablets, phones, TVs, and stereo receivers, but not all of them support high-resolution audio files. Rolling Stone also recommends a few high-resolution streaming services, and places to download high-resolution music.

The Quietus went to Czech medieval castle to speak with the leaders of the local dungeon synth scene, music reminiscent of the one that can be heard in fantasy video games. Fans of this genre number in the thousands, with a number of creators of this type of music being really small. Its creators, the Q writes, guard the promise of adventure somewhere else, in a never-never land whose laws cannot be fully explained. Dungeon synth is the outpost of those survivors, who have retained their childhoods' free imagination.

Music label Lost Map Records is releasing songs recorded by artists in isolation on the tiny Scottish island Eigg, which has about 100 permanent residents. According to the Guardian, Lost Map's residency project Visitations on the isle was started in 2018, attracting musicians such as members of British Sea Power and Jason Lytle, lead singer of Grandaddy. Visitors are set up in a secluded “bothy” cabin, where they are provided with accommodation, supplies, recording equipment and instruments, and have a week to create music inspired by their stay on the island. The results, released on vinyl and as digital downloads, are illustrative of the ideas residents have come up with to generate income as island life changes.

Ticketmaster has quietly changed its refund policy, making it harder now to get your funds back, Digital Music News reports. Ticketmaster’s previous policy indicated that “refunds are available if your event is postponed, rescheduled or canceled". However, the page was recently updated with new language which says only canceled events are eligible for refunds, and not “postponed or rescheduled” ones. Fans are allowed to resell their Ticketmaster resale marketplace.

NME's blogger really appreciates 'The New Abnormal', the album, not the world's settings: "The Strokes’ comeback couldn’t have been better timed. I can’t be the only one for whom it’s provided a welcome distraction from all the hypocritical government briefings and fighting in supermarkets... From the record, title-down, you might even conclude that they saw all this coming".

Bands and festivals are hoping that they'll restart in the fall, maybe even in late summer, but Zeke Emanuel, oncologist, bioethicist, senior fellow at the American Center for American Progress is far more pessimistic. His estimate, given to the New York Times, is it'll take a year and a half for concerts to begin again: "Restarting the economy has to be done in stages, and it does have to start with more physical distancing at a work site that allows people who are at lower risk to come back. Certain kinds of construction, or manufacturing or offices, in which you can maintain six-foot distances are more reasonable to start sooner. Larger gatherings — conferences, concerts, sporting events — when people say they’re going to reschedule this conference or graduation event for October 2020, I have no idea how they think that’s a plausible possibility. I think those things will be the last to return. Realistically we’re talking fall 2021 at the earliest".

BBC revealed the 10 most played songs on UK TV and radio of the last decade:

10. 'Sex On Fire' - Kings Of Leon

9. 'Forget You' - CeeLo Green

8. 'Counting Stars' - One Republic

7. 'Uptown Funk' - Mark Ronson, ft Bruno Mars

6. 'I Gotta Feeling' - Black Eyed Peas

5. 'Can't Stop The Feeling!' - Justin Timberlake

4. 'Get Lucky' - Daft Punk, ft Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers

3. 'Moves Like Jagger' - Maroon 5, ft Christina Aguilera

2. 'Rolling In The Deep' - Adele

1. 'Happy' - Pharrell Williams

Paul McCartney's handwritten lyrics for The Beatles' song 'Hey Jude' have sold at auction for £731,000 ($910,000), almost six times more than the £128,000 estimate, Independent reports. Three hundred items were on offer at Julien’s Auctions to mark the 50th anniversary of the band's split, and McCartney’s note was the biggest seller. Sir Paul wrote 'Hey Jude' to console the young Julian Lennon after the divorce of the boy's parents John and Cynthia, but changed the name to Jude because it sounded "a bit more country and western for me". A bass drumhead used in the opening concert of the Beatles' first North American tour fetched £161,000 ($200,000) at the same auction, four times its estimate. John Lennon and Yoko Ono's "BAGISM" drawing, featured in the couple's 1969 'Bed In Peace' documentary as part of their protest against the Vietnam War, sold for £75,000 ($93,750).

Italian classical singer Andrea Bocelli gave a moving performance from Milan's historic Duomo cathedral on Sunday evening, in a bid to inspire hope amid the global coronavirus pandemic. He performed sacred works from the empty cathedral, accompanied only by the cathedral's organist, Emanuele Vianelli. Livestream was watched by millions across the world. In quite a symbolic move, he stepped outside the church to sing the last song, 'Amazing Grace'.

Everybody is isolated, many are alone, so everyone wants some connection, The Atlantic argues in an excellent article about livestreams. No wonder the Instagram live hip hop battles are so popular, live-streamed concerts in which performers take requests have healthy viewership also, as well as live-streamed DJ sets in which viewers can see other people dancing at home. Some artists are also focusing on interactivity. Grimes put out a music video with a green-screen background on which fans were supposed to doodle, The Armed released audio stems of a song they wanted others to finish, Charli XCX is doing a similar thing with her new album.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Paul McCartney's saying goodbye to the Beatles, NME's Mark Beaumont made a list of 20 best songs from the fab four's solo careers. Number 1? Not the one we'd expected - "a perfect crystallisation of the psychedelic hypno-state" of the '#9 Dream' by John Lennon.

Cherie Hu published a well researched and highly valuable article on her Water & Music blog about music licensing in this time of mass music livestreams. The area is, as it turns out, highly unregulated, with sporadic solutions here and there - Facebook and YouTube have blanket deals for on-demand content, Twitch has "flat-fee agreements... to avoid litigation for 12 to 18 months as its business matures". Some people in the music business consider livestream-only performances to be "ephemeral" uses that don’t require sync licenses. Several publishing companies disagree. An essential read.

Independent Brooklyn label Temporary Residence Ltd is making an album a day on their Bandcamp “pay what you want” until a vaccine for coronavirus is discovered. "The goal is to offer fans who may have lost their jobs the opportunity to continue to invest in and be inspired by our music... while fans who still have job security can pay whatever they think is fair", Temporary explained. Temporary Residence’s catalog includes albums from Mogwai, Envy, Explosions in the Sky, Beak>, Mogwai, William Basinski, Steve Moore, Songs: Ohia, Maserati, Eluvium, Field Works, Nick Zammuto, and more.

Radio networks around the world are seeing audience reach and listening hours increasing in double digits, radio programs have been trending on Twitter for the first time in years, radio listening has increased (along with TV streaming) at the expense of music streaming - Midia reports on an unexpected shift. What is it about the radio? - the connection, comfort, companionship – or the sheer live broadcast experience – works wonders for passing the time in isolation.

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau used a cringy phrase while giving one of his daily press conferences amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which made for a banger hit. During the address, while he was outlining the benefits of wearing a mask while traveling in public, Trudeau used an unfortunate - and now infamous - choice of words to describe the way in which COVID-19 spreads: by "speaking moistly". A YouTube user named anonymotif has remixed his speech with emphasis, of course, on "speaking moistly", and it's a club hit now.

Phoebe Bridgers first recorded 'Kyoto' as a ballad, then changed it into a rawky-folk thing, a good move; Members of Power Trip & Fucked Up formed Masterpiece Machine, shared debut song, a powerful, industrial rock gem 'Rotting Fruit'; Mick Harvey shared 'Turkish Theme', an appropriately titled and melancholic song; 'Gap Tooth' is dancey synth-pop by Best Ex; former The Kills member Alison Mosshart shared her debut solo single 'Rise' - tense, simple rock with an accompanying message - "When the sky is coming down on ya/baby don’t look back/we will rise”; Cindy Lee's 'I Don’t Want To Fall In Love Again' is timeless, haunting, pretty and cold; Gorillaz have impressive guests on their new single 'Aries' - UK dance-pop singer Georgia on drums, and the legendary Joy Division/New Order bassist Peter Hook; Seattle rapper Kateel looks back on his life’s journey in hip-hop banger 'I Aint Forgot'; Manga Saint Hilare goes halfway from grime to pop on 'Not Around', also looking on his younger days; Canadian singer-songwriter Camille Delean shared her graceful and disquieting 'Fault Line'; RnB singer Nylo goes with less-is-more with 'History of Sorry'.

Two albums by the late great Rowland S Howard - 'Teenage Snuff Film' and 'Pop Crimes' - are being reissued, and the Quietus did a great job of talking to his former colleagues and fans like Nick Cave, Henry Rollins, Mick Harvey, and Lydia Lunch, trying to recapitulate his work. Henry Rollins saw him in 1983 - "I stood in front of Rowland to get as much of him in the mix as possible. It was like he was an extension of the guitar... I had never heard sounds like the ones that Rowland made that night. To this day, I think he’s one of the most amazing musicians I’ve ever seen or heard". Howard's former The Birthday Party bandmate Nick Cave shared a laudable, albeit a diplomatic answer: "Rowland S Howard's guitar sound defined a generation. He was the best of us all. His influence continues to reverberate, down the years, to this day. He was truly one of the greats".

Rihanna’s Clara Lionel Foundation has donated $2,1 million to help victims of domestic violence in Los Angeles during the COVID-19 stay-at-home order. It's a joint donation with Twitter/Square CEO Jack Dorsey who has also committed $2.1 million to the fund ($4.2 million when put together). According to Vulture, an estimated 90 people per week have been turned away from full shelters since the stay-at-home order went into effect last month. The joint grant is expected to cover 90 domestic violence victims per week through 10 weeks.

"Gentle and intelligent, humble and wholly kind-hearted" - NME writes in a review of English folk singer's new album, written to her imaginary daughter. Alexis Petridis chose it for his Album of the week describing it as "alternately intimate, sneering and sad, and lavished with gorgeous melodies". It's Stereogum's Album of the week as well, they love the atmosphere of it - "sounds like she’s sitting just a few feet away from you in a room, playing her guitar and seeing where her mind will wander next. It sounds like a giant exhalation".

Dolly Parton released a video with her reciting a new, witty poem about boredom and tension people are facing while everybody is at home. It's minute and a half long, a nice one: "This too shall pass as all things will. If the virus don't kill us, the staying home will. The kids are bored and restless. They scream and yell and squawk. And the teens and tweens, they're just plain mean. They bite your bleeping head off. And all those loving couples that were once so sweet and cozy? Now they fight like cats and dogs like Donald and Pelosi. Lord, get us back to school and get us back to work and get us out of this God dang house before someone gets hurt! And Lord, please find a vaccination in the form of a shot or a pill. Because if the virus don't kill us, the staying home will!".

"When the music’s so loud that you can’t think about anything else, all those niggling troubles just go” - Matt Baty, frontman of the Pig Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs told the Guardian about the psychedelic metal they're playing - “I find solace in really loud music. I don’t meditate – maybe I should – but it feels like I’m achieving a similar state of consciousness". Bassist Johnny Hedley explained - "It’s therapy through noise”. And for the band's name, abbreviated to Pigsx7 by the band themselves, guitarist Sam Grant explains that it functions as “an ego inhibitor. Having a silly name stops you getting ahead of yourself or hungering for success and keeps you focused on making music you believe in”.

A lovely column in the NPR about how sounds are beginning to emerge now that everything has stopped - the traffic, the daily commute, the stores are closed... Birdsong is more noticeable right now because noise pollution levels are down, so we're hearing the world as people heard it decades ago...