The producer's job is largely "getting the best out of an artist" by "making them feel special" - Stephen Street, the producer of records by The Smiths, Blur, The Cranberries, who is about to receive Music Producers Guild Awards, told the BBC about the essence of his job. He says how recording music is a lot about dealing with egos - "I have definitely been sent some slightly difficult people to work with", but sometimes "you do have to put your foot down but hopefully you're doing it in such a way that you're not making enemies... And there's other points where you just sit back and let them get on with it, because a good band will always sort out their natural balance".

When are the best and worst times to release an album, how style of music effects release windows, and how can marketers strategically plan their record campaigns around optimal release weeks - the Medium analyzed 691 "notable" album releases from 2019 in the US and - came up with answers. It is the US, but still, the basic principles apply everywhere. With the basic principle before all the basic principles being - make good music.

There are many musicians who feel that the onset of AI will spur a new golden era of creativity. Over the past several years, several prominent artists, like Arca, Holly Herndon, and Toro y Moi have worked with AI in order to push their music in new and unexpected directions. Musicians working with AI hope that technology will become a democratizing force and an essential part of everyday musical creation, just like with all the previous technologies.

"This is straight-up fight music. '2017 - 2019' isn't quite this lairy elsewhere, but most of it is jagged, hard-hitting and seriously over-driven" - Resident Advisor says in a review of Nicolas Jaar's somewhat left-of-center electro project Against All Logic. "Jaar has frequently asked that we move our bodies to his music, but never in this way... The change has Jaar sounding artistically replenished", RA adds - "'2017 - 2019' is an album of stylistic leaps, radiant melodies, difficult-to-place sounds and red herrings".

Witnessing police politely dealing with the crowd gathered for the Bob Marley 75 celebration in front of Marley museum in uptown Kingston (the house where he lived) offered a strange disconnect, the Guardian reports from Jamaica's capital on what would have been Marley's 75th birthday - back in the 1970s their presence outside the gates would have suggested a raid. This February, and every other month, for that fact, the museum is the Jamaican capital’s hottest tourist ticket, drawing more than 60,000 visitors a year. His message and mystique have mobilised a peaceful army of international followers, such as those holidaymakers venturing where few wealthy Kingstonians go. Changes would have happened without him, but Marley was there to guide them...

"An album that doesn’t grab your attention with pyrotechnic displays, opting instead for a slow-burning, unassuming kind of power: a low-key delight, but a delight all the same" - Alexis Petridis says in a review of the new, southern soul album by the Canadian songstress. American Songwriter likes the way she sings - "Frazey Ford sings with such reserved and sultry passion, somewhat like Laura Nyro, you can practically feel her swimming in the groove... hypnotic and often mesmerizing", and Exclaim appreciates what she sings about - "Ford's fiercely encouraging words remain, but on 'U kin B the Sun', they feel more powerful than ever".

The Resistance Revival Chorus is a New York collective of women protest singers, founded in the wake of the 2017 Women’s March. Since then, they’ve backed Kesha during her chill-inducing Grammy performance, sung Spanish lullabies to detained migrant children outside a New York holding facility, and been shouted-out by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. This spring, the female activist collective will play Bonnaroo and release their debut album.

She was at the Oscars last night to sing a cover of the Beatles’ 'Yesterday' during the In Memoriam segment. Billie Eilish sang the 1965 classic with her brother-collaborator Finneas on piano. The In Memoriam montage flashed across the screen behind them, showing people who died in the past year - actors Kirk Douglas, Doris Day, Peter Mayhew, filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker and basketball legend Kobe Bryant, among many others.

Guardian made a selection of best new music coming from Australia for February. 'Carry You' closes the final episode of Tim Minchin new series 'Upright', it's sang by Missy Higgins, a lovely ballad. Cable Ties play punk rock in 'Sandcastles', and, as the G suggests - "in rock music, if you’ve got a good riff, hook or chorus then repeat, repeat, repeat". Alex the Astronaut has a fun pop-rock song in 'I Think You’re Great'. (G)oldie Archie Roach remade some of his old stuff, giving 'Tell Me Why' more joyful atmosphere. Montaigne is a Eurovision contestant with 'Don't Break Me', who is expected to make it big soon, Sia style. Hayley Mary has a powerful pop song in 'Like A Woman Should'. #1 Dads have a funny band name and a somber, piano-driven song 'Freedom Fighter'. 'On My Side' is a chamber-folk song by singer-songwriter Lenka. A funny moment: punk-rockers The Chats sing about - venereal disease in 'The Clap'. Rockers Kingswood sound best ever on 'Bittersweet'.

Young Iceland composer Hildur Guðnadóttir won the Oscar last night in the Original score category, for her work on 'Joker' soundtrack, beating a quartet of men - Randy Newman, John Williams, Thomas Newman, and Alexandre Desplat. In the best original song category Elton John (music) and Bernie Taupin (lyrics) got the Oscar for their '(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again' from the biopic Rocketman.

For the fifth time in his career, Lil Wayne has reached the top of Billboard 200, the American album chart - his 13th album 'Funeral' debuts at No. 1 with 139,000 equivalent album units earned. Four more albums debut at the Top 10 - Russ’s 'Shake the Snow Globe' bows at No. 4 with 65,000 equivalent album units earned, Kesha snares her fourth top 10 album, as 'High Road' bows at No. 7 with 45,000 equivalent album units, Louis Tomlinson’s debut 'Walls' bows at No. 9 with 39,000 albums, and closing out the new top 10 on the Billboard 200 is Yo Gotti’s 'Untrapped', with 35,000 albums.

DJing from a USB stick changed the game completely in the last 10 years - faster and more reliable USB technology opened the gates of DJing to bedroom hobbyists and newbies who could carry their whole record collections in a pocket. That also made DJing much cheaper, and certain skills much easier - most obviously, beatmatching. Through certain fresh innovations - hot cues, wide pitch, and the controversial sync button among them - the art of DJing has been blown wide open, offering new opportunities for experimentation which, in turn, have led young producers to create genuinely new sounds and styles.

"Denzel Curry is one of the rawest, hardest-hitting rappers around at the moment and Kenny Beats is one of the rawest, hardest-hitting producers" - Brooklyn Vegan writes about their collaborative album. "Denzel’s bars on 'Unlocked' actually go harder than the ones on the two great albums he released in the past two years, and Kenny’s production is the perfect backdrop for Denzel’s rage" BV adds, underlining the general atmosphere on this album - "both also sound like they had a lot of fun with this project".

Misophonia, also known as sound rage, is a negative predilection for the body sounds of others - rubbing, sniffing, scratching, crackling, wheezing, whistling. Those suffering from it react to specific trigger sounds, not necessarily loud sounds but repetitive ones, with negative emotions and thoughts. Could misophonia also be triggered with push notifications, like the ones in smartphones - "I wonder whether the recurrent retreat to a digital space can contribute to the intensification of misophonia or to its development. The risk here is to consider any manifestation of life as a push notification, to see other people’s activity as an enduring attentional bombardment".

Keith Richards said he hasn’t touched a cigarette since last October and attributed the decision to his desire to remain active in music for as long as possible - “I think both Mick and I felt that on the last tour we were just getting going. [We]’ve got to continue this”. The Rolling Stone said it's harder than heroin - “Quitting heroin is like hell, but it’s a short hell. Cigarettes are just always there, and you’ve always done it". Now, Richards says his vices are limited to “a little wine with meals, and a Guinness or a beer or two”.

Society is shifting from ownership to access in other spheres too: movies, software, cars, even mobile phones. Perhaps I need to shift my mindset and embrace the loss of certainty and control. Accept that the lesson of on-demand music streaming could be, paradoxically, that you can’t have everything you want, exactly how and when you want it - Guardian's journalist writes about our need to own the things we love. Which we, obviously, don't have to. But we still do.

The manufacturing and storage facility for Apollo Masters, a Californian factory that supplies the lacquer used for making master discs, which are then used to create vinyl records - has burned down in a massive fire Friday morning, the Desert Sun reported. Apollo is, along with MDC in Japan, one of only two worldwide factories that produce the lacquers needed to create vinyls. Gil Tamazyan, founder and president of the California-based vinyl pressing plant Capsule Labs, said to Billboard that "unless something happens really quickly, there will soon be Vinylgeddon". Tamazyan estimates that Apollo supplies 80% of blank lacquer master discs globally.

"The Chicago drummer and producer transforms Gil-Scott Heron's final album into a masterpiece of dirty blues, spiritual jazz, and deep yearning" - Pitchfork says in a review (8.6) of the last album by Gil-Scott Herron (2010), thoroughly reimagined by Makaya McCraven. Lyrically - "the ability to live with contradictions and give them life with his words is part of what made Scott-Heron’s work special, and McCraven’s music inhabits that complicated space and keeps its sharp edges intact".

The use of words related to negative emotions, in English-language popular songs at least, has increased by more than one third in the last 50 years, an analysis of lyrics of more than 150,000 songs has shown. Let’s assume an average of 300 words per song, every year there are 30,000 words in the lyrics of the top-100 hits. In 1965, around 450 of these words were associated with negative emotions, whereas in 2015 their number was above 700. Words associated with positive emotions decreased in the same time period - there were more than 1,750 positive-emotion words in the songs of 1965 and only around 1,150 in 2015. The tempo and the tonality of pop songs also changed - hits have become slower, and minor tonalities have become more frequent. No definitive explanation, just assumptions - less centralised record industry, societal changes...

Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien has released 'Shangri-La', a dance rock song from his debut solo album 'Earth', coming in April, signed EOB; Cabane is a Belgium musician and photographer releasing his solo debut album 'Grande Est La Maison', with Will Oldham singing on the pretty 'Take Me Home'; Horseneck includes two former Will Haven guitarists and Chelsea Wolfe's drummer, they play sludge/post-hardcore on 'Pen15'; Jon Hopkins released a piano and violin heavy 'Scene Suspended'; Le Couleur on 'Concorde' sang an ode to the airplane; Chester Bennington 1990s band Grey Daze remade their song 'Sickness' with Helmet frontman Page Hamilton lending his guitar; Noah Reid does US-rock on 'Honesty'; folk singer Aoife O'Donovan catches attention with the first line "The water is a glaze like loneliness at ease with itself" on her new song 'Night Fishing'.

Spotify has acquired The Ringer, a media company that includes culture website and massive podcast operation. This is the fourth podcast company acquisition Spotify has made in the last 12 months - last year it spent about $400 million to buy Gimlet Media, Anchor FM, and Parcast, announcing a year ago they intend to spend $500 million on its podcasting effort. Spotify hopes that adding a podcast business to its core music service will help them bring in new users, and keep existing users around longer. Music industry analysts say there are the first signs of the new company that Spotify is building – and they point to a very different and much bolder future.

Denzel Curry and Kenny Beats released a new short film, where they argue over who leaked their collab album. They have to go into a video-game and rescue their files at various levels of the game, with some interesting thoughts on music-files theft on the way. While they play, there is some music from the pair too - good beats and plenty of funny lines.

"Great albums have come out of the most unusual circumstances, and with 'The Storm Sessions', Elkhorn proves that it's possible to take an unforeseen episode and turn into a transcendent evening of pure, unfiltered inspiration" - PopMatters writes in a review of Elkhorn's new album, made when the two members of the band, Jesse Sheppard and Drew Gardner, got snowed in with their friend Turner Williams. They had four instruments among them - a 12-string acoustic guitar, six-string electric guitar, an electric bouzouki, and shahi baaja (a type of Indian zither) - and what they made is a - "layer of sound... used to haunting effect from the very beginning". It's liberating, relaxing, mesmerizing, rich, and fulfilling.

They look like young brothers of the King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard who plays Bee Gees songs in a Talking Heads way, so how come the Blossoms don't have Top 10 singles (albums do good, though), although they produce singles with hit potential. "It's just the way music is at the moment," observes drummer Joe Donovan - "bands just aren't the thing".

The experimental rock band consisting of Mike Patton, Trey Spruance, and Trevor Dunn, played their first shows in nearly two decades at LA's Fonda Theatre on Wednesday. They performed their 1986 demo tape, 'The Raging Wrath Of The Easter Bunny', joined by special guests Scott Ian (Anthrax guitarist) and Dave Lombardo (Slayer drummer). Apart from their songs, they played part of Slayer’s 'Hell Awaits' into their own 'Evil Satan', they covered 'Speak English or Die' by Scott Ian’s band Stormtroopers of Death (and changed the lyrics to "Speak Spanish or Die"), they played part of 'The Real Thing' by Mike Patton’s band Faith No More into their own 'Sudden Death', and covered 'Fuck the USA' by the Exploited. Revolver Magazine was there - "In a move at once inspired and antagonistic, one of the most quietly influential bands in metal reunited last night in Los Angeles … to play zero of the songs that made them influential".

Savages' frontwoman Jehnny Beth will release her solo debut 'To Love Is to Live' in May, and the project started on the night David Bowie died. She stayed up until morning listening to Bowie’s 'Blackstar', which "had a huge influence in terms of reminding me how an album can be a testament, an imprint of your vision of the world, and it will last longer than you will". It inspired her to work on the solo album “as if I was going to die”. It was produced by Flood (U2, New Order) and Nine Inch Nails’ Atticus Ross because she wanted to give the album an intriguing sonic dissonance.

Demos or unreleased songs from Beyoncé, Rihanna, SZA, Playboi Carti, and Lil Uzi Vert have all made their way on to Spotify or Apple Music in the last 15 months. The latest such example is 18-year-old trap-rapper Lil Mosey whose song 'Blueberry Faygo' was released to Spotify, unauthorized, under several fake names. It started with 'Blueberry Fweigo0 by 73bands, which debuted at Number Eight on the U.S. Viral 50 a few days after Christmas, and was taken down after one day. It was almost immediately replaced on the chart by Mikey.Otx’s 'Blueberry Faygo' - identical recording with new title and a new name. When that song was removed, it was followed by 'Blueberry Faygo' by Yung Anime, 'Blueberry Fejgo' by Khlaw, 'Blueberry Fergo' by Lil Monet, 'Burberry Faygo' by Lil Andrei, and 'Blueberry Fanta' by Shmackdat, all fake artists. One version of the song that was still on Spotify last week, attributed to an artist named Bennjp, had nearly 22 million streams, meaning it could have netted the uploader a lot of money.

Created by French artists Octave Marsal and Theo De Gueltzl, the animated 'Redemption Song' clip features nearly 3,000 original drawings of Jamaican imagery that represent the song’s message of emancipation. The clip is the first installment of “Marley75”, a year-long celebration of Bob Marley's birthday, who would have turned 75 years February 6. Upcoming YouTube videos of previously unreleased material will be dropped throughout the year, encompassing music, art, photography and more.

The American producer of smart speakers Sonos caused an uproar announcing they will stop releasing software updates and new features for a group of their "legacy" products - the original Zone Players, Connect, and Connect:Amp, first-generation Play:5, CR200, and Bridg. The announcement caused an uproar among their customers, so Sonos changed their tune saying they will deliver bug fixes and security patches to legacy products. For how long? - “for as long as possible”, without any hard timeline. Engadget points out the fact that the old stereos from the 1980s or even older are working just fine to this date, and the new, "smart" ones tend to have an expiry date of five years. Watch their video-analysis below.

“I consider this to be one of the most personal records we’ve ever made, even if the songs deal with ‘political’ subject matters. As I keep saying, political is personal” - Drive-by Truckers co-frontman Patterson Hood says about their new album 'The Unraveling'. The Ringer wrote a great review saying -"'The Unraveling' is riddled with real-life victims of our current moment. There is no clear path forward, but there is this left to fight for: Without resistance, whatever comes next may well be even worse", although - "It’s hard to know which side you’re on when you can’t even see the playing field".