Before he joined Linkin Park, Chester Bennington fronted a late grunge band Grey Daze. Beginning of 2017 the band got together and reworked recordings from their early releases, with vocals Bennington recorded as a teenager. The album is coming out this spring.
In four days after the news of Neil Peart's passing, on-demand audio and video streams of Rush’s catalog of songs in the U.S. increased to a combined 24.54 million - up 776.4% as compared to the previous four days (2.8 million on Jan. 6-9). In terms of sales, Rush’s catalog of songs grew by 2,304% to 19,000 (from 1,000), while the group’s album sales gained 1,820% to 6,000 (up from a negligible figure).
In 2015 two musicians and lecturers, Johny Lamb (who records as Thirty Pounds of Bone) and Philip Reeder took a trip on a trawler called the Girl Mary. They brought instruments and recording gear along with them and recorded folk songs about the sea while on the boat. The sounds of the ocean and the gulls are heard throughout, as well as the creaking of the hull, a helicopter (apparently belonging to the coastguard), something that could be a mechanical winch. The result - 25 minutes of beautifully sad fishermen songs on 'Still Every Year They Went', straight from the sea.
Mariah Carey, Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics, members of The Isley Brothers, Steve Miller, Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams of The Neptunes, Rick Nowels and William “Mickey” Stevenson have been announced as the class of 2020 of the Songwriters Hall Of Fame.
People behind Chicago label International Anthem like it to be defined as "boundary-defying music", or at least “jazz and its offshoots”, “jazz-identified music”, and “post-jazz” instead, especially with its two founders, Scottie McNiece and David Allen, coming from a DIY-punk scene. McNiece said they wanted to create publish music that was modern and less academic - “It was very important to us to create a more inviting entry point”. by now, they've released local musicians such as Makaya McCraven, jaimie branch, Damon Locks, Junius Paul, and Angel Bat Dawid.
Not because they are women, but because of the ways they changed music, NPR argues in favor of 41 women deserving to be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Dolly Parton for changing much more than country music. PJ Harvey for changing the shake of rock'n'roll. Kate Bush for extensively combining synthesizers and rock elements.
Previously unseen footage of David Bowie shot in 1998, recovered from a university archive has been released. The 30 minutes of experimental film was shot by friend and collaborator Prof Martin Richardson to create a hologram. The finished short film was used on artwork on the album 'Hours'.
Akon has “finalized the agreement for AKON CITY in Senegal” with the Senegalese government - it will be built on 2,000-acre land gifted to him by the President of Senegal, Macky Sall. Akon City will supposedly be the first city to ever run on 100% renewable energy, and the economy will be run entirely on cryptocurrency Akoin.
"When it comes to doom, I expect gigantic music — not just in sound or sheer weight, though, but in that more indescriptible room-filling, head-invigorating way... Also important is the element of beauty, because what’s more beautiful than tragedy?" - Invisible Oranges wrote in expectation of the new album by UK doom band Garganjua. "This is emotive, almost uplifting music for total devastation".
Independent music venues in Britain should receive the same support as the ballet or opera, musician Anna Calvi said - “Just because it’s music that is played with guitars, why is it any different to a place like the ballet or opera?". The musician believes that venues which predominantly focus on live music need to be protected at a time when a third of smaller venues report they are struggling.
Ed Sheeran’s ‘Shape Of You’ is the most played song on Spotify with 2.3 billion streams, earning the singer just over £7 million. Drake's ‘One Dance’ is the second most streamed song with over 1.7 billion plays and £6 million in profits, and Post Malone’s ‘Rockstar’ came third with 1.7 billion streams and £5.8 million in royalties. Four of Sheeran's tracks make the top 100 most streamed on Spotify - collectively 'Shape of You', 'Thinking Out Loud', 'Perfect' and 'Photograph' have had 6.1 billion plays, and earned an estimated £21 million. On average, Spotify pays artists an estimated £0.0034p for every stream on the platform.
Various Caterina Barbieri tracks, Coil’s ‘Ostia’, Claudio Simonetti’s Phenomena OST and Marilyn Manson’s iconic cover of ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)’ provided an atmospheric soundtrack to the 2020 Menswear show from Gucci at Milan Men’s Fashion Week. Gucci designer Alessandro Michele’s explained the show was intended as a statement against toxic masculinity.
15 expert musicologists have come to the aid of Katy Perry in her ‘Dark Horse’ copyright case (the court ruled she plagiarised song ‘Joyful Noise’ by Christain rapper Flame, was ordered to pay $2,8 million in damages), by sending an amici curiae letter to the court, asking the case to be reexamined.
Today the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced the inductees for this year, it's - Depeche Mode, The Doobie Brothers, Whitney Houston, Nine Inch Nails, The Notorious B.I.G. and T. Rex. Billboard argues the inductees "represent one of the most forward-looking and least genre-stringent classes we've seen acknowledged by the Rock Hall". NPR points out to the lack of women in the Hall, generally and this year - over the course of 34 years, there were 69 women inducted out of 888 inductees or less than 8%.
The experimental pop duo 100 gecs is expected to make it big this year with their imaginative and uncompromising fondness for unfashionable genres - electroclash, pop-punk, emo rap, dubstep, trance, industrial rock and dance, drum ’n’ bass, death metal, chiptune, and even polka, The New Yorker says. They aren't a product of nostalgia, as much as "of nihilism, an impressively concise maximalist exercise with no rules. It does not capture specific eras so much as it celebrates a history of musical idiosyncrasies"
Plenty of good new songs this week - Nadia Reid has released a delicate and atmospheric new record, Drive-By Truckers sing about how thoughts and prayers aren't enough to deal with mass-shootings, emo-core veterans Alexisonfire are reunited and going atmospheric, LA beatmaker TOKiMONSTA gets help from EarthGang on her highly psychedelic song, Ultraista is a band made up of members of Atoms For Peace + vocalist Laura Bettinson, they released a dancey new song, dark-folk singer Myrkur goes theatrical on her new record, modern jazz meets electronica on Wacław Zimpel's new song...
Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas O'Connell have composed and recorded the title track for the new James Bond film, 'No Time To Die'. Eilish, who turned 18 last month, is the youngest artist in history to write and record a theme for the franchise. "James Bond is the coolest film franchise ever to exist. I'm still in shock" - she said.
"They’re one of the rare groups that have no need to push their sound in dramatically new directions; what they make is already so elementally good" - Stereogum says about the new album 'See You Tomorrow' by the indie folk band The Innocence Mission. Their music is "wonderfully organic... spectral and ruminative... breathtakingly intimate and delicate".
Producer Diplo it turning country, and as a first prerequisite for a country artist, he sports a - gold tooth. The original got knocked loose in a fight when Diplo was younger and eventually turned gray, and then, by the time he had to get veneers, he figured, what the hell, why not go for gold? - “I don't have a job, so it didn't really matter. I'm doing a country album, so I think having a gold tooth is fine”.
"We are faced with a conundrum about whether or not to remain as consumers, and continually take from the world we live in, or to start looking after our planet" - British Americana singer-songwriter, Robert Vincent said about his newest song 'Conundrum'. It comes out on his new album 'In This Town You're Owned' February 14.
The harsh reality is that the pool of female talent is smaller because the record industry is terrible at nurturing female artists. Of the 193 albums submitted for consideration for this year's best album prize, only 35 were by women. Just 19% of the artists signed to record labels in the UK being women. Why is that? "Anecdotally, I've heard that labels are not too keen on signing and developing female talent because it costs more," says Rhian Jones, a contributing editor to Music Business Worldwide. "There's stylists, there's make-up artists and the shows tend to be bigger productions. Whereas Lewis Capaldi can just get a guitar out, put a t-shirt on and everyone loves it."
Filipino singer Marcelito Pomoy is a contestant in America's Got Talent show, where he sang a rendition of 'The Prayer', singing Celine Dion parts in one second, and then Andrea Bocelli parts in second. The jury was impressed, rightfully so.
Chicago rapper Mick Jenkins has a new project, a short, seven-song, 19-minute EP 'The Circus with "voguish hip-hop tracks ready to distract you from modern strife". He navigates lush, lively jazz-rap as well as futuristic electronic music - "The more you listen to him rap, the more he sounds like nobody else around".
The best selling vinyl album in the 2010s in the USA was 'Abbey Road' by the Beatles, selling in 558,000 copies. In fact, all the biggest vinyl albums of the past 10 years are older performers like Pink Floyd, Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, Miles Davis... Only two albums actually released in the 2010s appear on the list: the 'Guardians of the Galaxy' soundtrack - which is entirely comprised of songs released in the ’60s and ’70s, and Lana Del Rey’s 'Born to Die'. The only album from the noughties on the list is Amy Winehouse's 'Back to Black'. No album from the 1990s on the list.
Vincent is a funny guy making dead-pan serious covers of famous songs in various styles. This time around it's 'Down With the Sickness' by the Disturbed, sang in style of Simon & Garfunkel, Metallica, Earth, Wind & Fire, silent movies (he keeps quiet, of course), The Hu, Faith No More etc.
Iceland composer Hildur Guðnadóttir is nominated for Oscar, in Music - Original Score category for her work in 'Joker'. Other nominees in this category are Alexandre Desplat for 'Little Women', Randy Newman for Marriage Story, Thomas Newman for '1917' and John Williams for 'Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker'. Nominees in the other music category - Original Song - are: Randy Newman for 'I Can't Let You Throw Yourself Away' from 'Toy Story 4'; Elton John and Bernie Taupin for '(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again' from 'Rocketman'; Diane Warren for 'I'm Standing With You' from 'Breakthrough'; Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez for 'Into The Unknown' from 'Frozen II'; Joshuah Brian Campbell and Cynthia Erivo for 'Stand Up' from 'Harriet'.
Chicago musician Nez - from the production duo Nez & Rio who produced already for Kendrick Lamar, ScHoolboy Q, A$AP Rocky, Chance The Rapper - is breaking out on his own with his debut single 'Wild Youngster', deep house jam featuring ScHoolboy Q. "I want to make people feel again. I want to make people dance" he explained the idea behind his debut.
Silence festival is the biggest music fest held in Kathmandu, Nepal, with 1,500 or so metal fans attending. It takes place in two courtyards of a small hotel and restaurant complex in Kathmandu. Festival director Flower KC said he will lose £25,000 on Silence, all covered by him and his friends. But, he has a higher goal: “The idea is guided by the idea that why should it be only mountaineers or hippies who come to Nepal? Why can’t we attract a different breed of people? My goal is to make Nepal a heavy metal destination".
Queen and Adam Lambert, Alice Cooper, k.d. lang, Olivia Newton-John and John Farnham will play the Sydney’s ANZ Stadium for a massive bushfire relief concert, to be held February 16. All profits and contributions will go to Australian wildfires relief efforts. Also confirmed for the Fire Fight Australia concert are numerous homegrown artists.
Nicki Minaj’s NICKIHNDRXX Tour was canceled in North America, Chance the Rapper’s Big Day Tour was canceled everywhere, and T-Pain’s 1UP DLC Tour canceled as well. Of the top 10 global tours of 2019, none of them were hip-hop. In 2018, just one (Beyonce and Jay-Z’s On The Run II). The industry needs to adapt.
Several companies have spent billions of dollars buying music catalogs of established pop stars. Variety goes behind the new model in the music business: "A song catalog is an asset much more complicated than, say, a Picasso or even many real estate properties, and some investors seem to enter the arena on the mistaken premise that all songs, or even all hit songs, are created equal. In reality, they are demanding, ephemeral assets that require a lot of attention — pitching, repackaging, finding new opportunities — without oversaturating and thus damaging the artist (a.k.a the brand) or the songs".
Solange Knowles has created and written 'Pasage', a motion portraiture and celebration of the six 2021 International Woolmark Prize finalists. Scored by Standing on The Corner, it stars Dionne Warwick, Dominique Jackson, SahBabii, Joi and KeiyaA, and it goes into a deeply thoughtful exploration of sustainability, and the stages of creation: contemplation, courage, optimism, vulnerability, discipline and strength. Through 6 acts of concentrated motion between stage, nature and surrealism, the film echoes themes of conjuring and ceremonious celebrations, and creates abstraction to embody the various expressions of each designer.
Mali-born, France-based folk singer-songwriter and guitarist Fatoumata Diawara enlisted revered female musicians Angelique Kidjo, Dianne Reeves, China Moses, Inna Modja, Somi, Mayra Andrade, Thandiswa Mazwai and Terri Lyne Carrington to collaborate on track ‘Ambè’ meaning ‘altogether’ in Bambara, underlines the importance of harmony and togetherness in difficult and challenging times. Composed during the first lockdown, the unique collaboration between female artists of African origin or descent sends a message of cooperation and a world without borders.
New York-based Pershing Square Tontine Holding, led by billionaire CEO Bill Ackman, is to acquire 10% of Universal Music Group for approximately $4 billion. The deal would value the label at $40 billion and make it the largest ever investment by a blank check vehicle, Reuters reports. Universal, owned by the parent company Vivendi and controlled by French billionaire Vincent Bollore, has benefited from growing streaming revenues at the world's biggest music label, which is behind artists such as Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga. The deal would give Universal an enterprise value of 35 billion euros ($42.4 billion).
"Morrissey - I’m proud to be one of what he calls his seven friends - says being alone is a great privilege. Not only is it a privilege but it is a great privilege of an affluent society because two thirds of the world you cannot be alone because you have to be in a huge team just to survive daily" - The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde tells to The New Cue looking back on how she wrote the song 'Alone'. However - "let us not in any way diminish the fact that loneliness is an epidemic in our society. I have been alone most of my life. As has Morrissey and I know for a fact that he fucking hates it too. We hate it but it is a privilege. We hate it and we don’t want to be alone but on the other hand we accept it because it affords us a lot of freedoms that otherwise we wouldn’t have”.
New York-based music rights company Reservoir has acquired the US record label and music publishing company Tommy Boy Music LLC - home to Queen Latifah, Afrika Bambaataa, Digital Underground, Coolio, De La Soul, House of Pain and Naughty By Nature, among others - in a deal valued at approximately $100m. Reservoir’s deal to buy Tommy Boy comprises 6,000+ masters including Coolio’s 'Gangsta’s Paradise', House of Pain’s 'Jump Around', and Afrika Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force’s 'Planet Rock', MBW reports. Apart from the hip-hop pioneers, Tommy Boy also introduced EDM to mainstream audiences through releases by LFO, Coldcut, and 808 State, while helping to establish the Latin Freestyle and Latin Hip-Hop genres with releases by TKA, K7, and Information Society.
Chvrches share saucy synth-pop 'How Not To Drown'; Darkside keep their branded clubby sound on 'Lawmaker'; L’Rain goes dramatic and big on 'Blame Me'; Turnstile share a bit of grand psychedelic rock on 'Mystery'; Martha Skye Murphy used only classical instruments - clavinet, clarinet, voice, guitar - to create the haunting 'Found Out'.
The World Intellectual Property Organization, a United Nations agency tasked with the protection and promotion of intellectual property, issued a lengthy report Artists in the Digital Music Marketplace, where its authors Chris Castle and Claudio Feijoo took a clear stand: "Why does everyone in the streaming economy seem to be prospering except performers whose work drives it all?". The report recommends a new streaming music royalty that would be paid directly to "performers (and potentially to producers)" without going through labels or publishers.
"If you have financial privilege, you’d better be paying it forward — and if you are a white, straight person who is making money from music, you’d better be donating money to LGBTQ causes and Black Lives Matter and others that help marginalized people, because without marginalized people, music is gonna get really bad, really quick" - Justin Tranter says in a very interesting Variety interview. Tranter is the author behind Justin Bieber’s 'Sorry', Selena Gomez’s 'Lose You to Love Me', Imagine Dragons’ 'Believer' and dozens more. They also founded and run Facet Records and Music Publishing, which launched late in 2018.
'We Are Lady Parts' is a British television sitcom that follows an eponymous British punk rock band, which consists entirely of Muslim women. Rolling Stone appreciates the representation side of it: "It’s a fundamental social good for audiences to encounter people who look and talk like them in the stories they consume, and also for people from other groups to be exposed to characters who aren’t at all like themselves". AV Club likes how the British comedy, which comprises only six half-hour episodes, "manages to pack a punch with its fast-paced, comprehensive storytelling and cogent, comical writing".
