Elton John has been appointed to the Queen's Order of the Companions of Honour in the New Year Honours list for a remarkable music career and his services to charity. He becomes one of only 65 people apart from the monarch who can hold the honour at any one time. Apart from him, Olivia Newton-John, […]
"If I was going to name a favorite record that has been a favorite for all my life it would probably be either 'Beggars Banquet' or 'Let It Bleed' from the Rolling Stones. Actually, 'Sticky Fingers', 'Let It Bleed', 'Beggars Banquet', 'Exile on Main St.' — those four records in a row are pretty much my favorite music of all time" - Slash said about […]
The Guardian made a list of 50 up-and-coming artists for the next year. Still, they pick their favourites among these - it's British electronic musician Beatrice Dillon with "masterfully light yet complex music", American singer-songwriter Eli Winter, gospel-influenced singer Lynda Dawn, Brit-rock band Sports Team, "shimmering chanson post-punk" singer Charlène Darling, Asagraum because - "totally […]
Quite a good selection of rap and R&B (actually, mostly rap) albums of 2019 by the Brooklyn Vegan. An inclusive list covers majority of the most important moments in this year's rap/R&B - they've got Skepta's 'Ignorance Is Bliss', Pivot Gang's 'You Can’t Sit With Us', Stormzy's 'Heavy Is The Head', Danny Brown's 'uknowhatimsayin?', Solange's […]
Nirvana's most famous song reached 1 billion views on YouTube, making 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' the second-most-viewed ’90s music video on YouTube, only trailing Guns N’ Roses’ 'November Rain' (1.3 billion views). GN’R also have the most-viewed video of the ’80s - 'Sweet Child O’ Mine' recently topped 1 billion views.
Brooklyn Vegan happily reports from Yo La Tengo's Hannukah Run at New York's Bowery Ballroom, where they reformed ’80s/’90s indie rock band Christmas to play their first show in over 25 years, on Christmas Day. Yo La Tengo were also joined by C.J. Camerieri on trumpet and french horn (he collaborated with Paul Simon, Anohni, The National, Rufus Wainwright), […]
"The 'Divide' era and tour changed my life in so many ways, but now it’s all over it’s time to go out and see more of the world" - British pop-singer announced, NME reports. 28-year-old Ed Sheeran added he's "been a bit non stop since 2017, so I’m just gonna take a breather to travel, […]
2019 saw dancefloor boundaries staked out in exciting new territory, Guardian says in their introduction to the best underground club music of the year. Producers that broke those boundaries, the G says, were DJ Plead, Loraine James, Barker, Aya, Sherelle, Conducta...
Nick Cave has made his concert film, 'Distant Sky — Live in Copenhagen', available to stream for free on YouTube. The live film was shot during a special 2017 concert at Denmark’s Royal Arena, featuring a full album performance of 'Skeleton Tree', as well as a number of other Cave&Seeds songs. 'Distant Sky' was directed by […]
A record number of 973,000 vinyl LPs was sold in the USA in week ending Dec. 19, marking the single biggest week for vinyl album sales since Nielsen Music began electronically tracking music sales in 1991. Vinyl album sales were so hot in the week ending Dec. 19, they comprised 25% of all albums sold […]
Dr. Dre hasn’t released an album since 2015, haven't been on tour since the turn of the millennium, and his last production credit on a No. 1 hit was in 2009 (Eminem’s 'Crack a Bottle'), but still he managed to climb to the top of Forbes list of highest-earning musician of this decade. He earned […]
Kanye West released a new album 'Jesus Is Born' on Christmas day, two months after 'Jesus is King'. The album's primary artist is listed as the Sunday Service Choir, a gospel collective featuring West, which has also performed in his Sunday Service hip-hop and gospel pop-up events. The album features 19 songs -- including a […]
Allee Willis, songwriter who helped compose the theme song 'I'll Be There for You' for the sitcom 'Friends', has died aged 72, Variety reports. Willis also co-wrote the Earth, Wind & Fire hits 'September' and 'Boogie Wonderland', and has won Grammy Awards for the soundtrack for the film 'Beverly Hills Cop' and another for the […]
It was not written that three, or any other number of kings visited them, or that stars flew over their heads when they were born, but they did indeed become stars later on. It's their music, not being born on December 25, that made them famous - Shane MacGowan, singer-songwriter of The Pogues, Annie Lennox […]
To cap off a year of endless incredible mixes from much-loved stalwarts and game-changing newbies alike, we present our 25 favorite mixes - Fact Magazine says in the introduction of their choice of mixes for the year. It's really a colourful mix, incorporating even Mariah Carey and Linkin Park's late Chester Bennington.
17-year-old promoter Bryson Del Valle booked a five-band gig at a Denny’s restaurant in Santa Ana, California, which ended up, well, good in punk terms, less so in family diner terms. Del Valles apparently booked the venue by saying it was for a birthday party, Denny's didn't realize it was to be a punk one. A […]
Berlin-based producer Matias Aguayo was the latest guest in Fact magazine's segment Against The Clock were a musician, or a band, is given 10 minutes in the studio to make some music. Aguayo made a great deal out of that time - he produced a mini live set, based on washed-out vocals, loop-heavy beat built […]
The list goes from 'Titanic Rising' by Weyes Blood at the top (because "we too are lost in the stars"), to 'Animated Violence Mild' by the Blanck Mass at the spot No. 50 ("one of the harshest sounding albums"). Check out the full list here. BV made a separate list of 40 best indie-music albums - here […]
Twenty-three songs have been in the top half of Billboard’s Holiday 100 nearly every week since the list began in 2011, with 15 of them being written before 1970, and only 1 of the top 23 holiday songs was released this century, and it’s a cover of a song written in 1951, Washington Post writes […]
American funk singer Roy C in 1973, at the height of the Watergate scandal, made a song 'Impeach the President' about Richard Nixon, but it was left obscure. It has been sampled for around 600 times since, but somebody else owns the publishing rights now. The week the Trump's impeachment process was announced online streams […]
Quartz wrote a nice notice about how listening to music on headphones/earpods in changing music. Selena Gomez and Billie Eilish made songs with style of singing almost like a whisper; music producers have to boost bass frequencies in the higher range in order for the bass to be heard well on headphones; producers are also […]
Rolling Stone tries to, partly at least, define the 2010s by specific sounds that emerged. Not that those sounds didn't exist before, it's just that in the last 10 years they got main roles. RS heard: whisper pop sounds (by Billie Eilish), sounds as lyrics in rap (Future, Young Thug), chorus devoid of human voice […]
British pop star landed his second No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart, as his 'Fine Line' earned 478,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Dec. 19, Billboard reports. 'Fine Line' had the biggest week for a pop album by a male artist in over four years, and the third-biggest […]
"I maybe had smoked a joint and then went in the booth and I was kinda out of it, and I just started rapping with my normal voice, like my speaking voice, and Ric said 'That's it!' And that was it" - Andre 3000 tells Rick Rubin in a Broken Records podcast about how he struggled […]
"I have so many things in my life now that I dreamed about when I was younger, so the fact I can’t go anywhere is OK to me because I’m busy doing my own shit. Also, I can fucking buck up and go places anyway and just be fine with getting recognised all the time" […]
Pitchfork made a great selection of music books published this year - a collection of best writings by the satire website The Hard Times, high-school biography by Tegan and Sara, journals by ’70s gay porn flicks soundtrack author Patrick Cowley, a case against R. Kelly by journalist Jim DeRogatis who investigated him for 20 years, […]
The Slate heard plenty of good concept albums this year, how did this happen? - "Do you think all of this deep play with pop form is taking place now because story itself has become so unstable? Did we have such a real year in music because everything else feels like fake news?".
"I don’t like the idea of being settled. I find it very hard to imagine permanence in any way, and I can’t really get to grips with why. I have a deep need to keep myself alert, and to make sure I’m seeing all the time. I always have to find these ways of uprooting […]
Working with visionaries, and spreading their gospel has become harder and harder to do but when it does happen, it happens even bigger than it used to. Lizzo and Billie Eilish are perfect examples; real artists are breaking very big, very fast because there’s a thirst for superstars - Brandon Creed, manager of Mark Ronson, […]
Brooklyn Vegan's choice of 100 best emo and punk albums of 2010s includes a whole lot of it found in between Converge and Mitski, meaning "punk" and "emo" is taken as an attitude/philosophy, rather than a genre. The top 10 (below) might be the least varied here... 10. The Menzingers – 'On the Impossible Past' […]
California multi-instrumentalist and producer Georgia Anne Muldrow released her 21st album in 15 years, the largely instrumental electro/hip-hop/funky LP that she wrote and produced herself. PopMatters describes it as a "17-track clinic on creating rhythmic framework that wow you with their complexity and propel you into movement", whereas New Yorker hears it as "fidgety and animated, as if the music is longing to move out of confinement, to vibrate toward something". All Music argues "Muldrow's aim here is to provide listeners with superhero themes that facilitate emboldened movement out of doors".
Pop-country vocalist B.J. Thomas, famous for the 1969 smash 'Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head', written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David for the 1969 Paul Newman/Robert Redford Western 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid', has died at the age of 78 from lung cancer. Grammy-winning singer had hits in pop, country, and gospel with songs like 'Hooked on a Feeling' and '(Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song'. The New York Times looks back at his career.
Medium writer Patsy Fergusson explaines why she liked Linda Lindas' 'Racist, Sexist Boy': "I’m not a fan of punk music. Screaming annoys me. But I loved the song... because it broke so many tired stereotypes.
“In the wake of criminalisation, our nighttime and festival industries had become a massive success... It was still rave, at the end of the day. The spirit was still alive and kicking in the people who chose to get fucked up and go dancing together at every possible opportunity” - author and rave veteran Matthew Smith writes in his new photo-book of ’00s clubs. Music journalist Simon Reynolds goes beyond the obvious: "In the public but intimate setting of the rave, private fantasies that can’t be expressed within the strictures of routine existence are enacted... We see people both losing themselves and finding themselves, building a collective dreamworld under the cover of night”. The Face invites us to step inside 'Full On, No-Stop-All Over'.
Music analyst Bob Lefsetz argues in his latest blog post that mainstream music has become laughable: "Social media is fluid. It changes every day. It’s not so much about creating a track that everybody listens to ad infinitum, but something so outrageous that people take notice, train-wreck value is the most important criterion, you want something the viewers can tweak to their own advantage, utilize to garner views for themselves".
Metal Hammer sees four female influencers on social media who continue to prove metal is still alive. Sophie Lloyd (@sophieguitar_) is a British guitarist whose videos have amassed tens of millions of views; Kiki Wong's (@kikiwongo) cover of 'Blinded By Fear' by At The Gates has racked up a quarter of a million views on Instagram alone – four times higher than the number who actually follow At The Gates on Insta; Yasmine Summan (@yasminesumman) is Metal Hammer and NME journalist hosting On Wednesdays We Wear Black podcast raising awareness of issues facing the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ members of the rock and metal community; Cassyette (@cassyette) says she hopes she can "influence people with the genre of rock and metal to express themselves through music, fashion and make-up, and maybe help people that are struggling with their identity".
Guardian goes into reasons why movie studies are remaking classic rock songs into epic pop songs for movie trailers. Nirvana's 'Something in the Way' got a completely new identity in last summer’s teaser for 'The Batman'. Teaser for Marvel Studios’ 'Eternals' revamps Skeeter Davis’ country ballad 'The End of the World', the preview for 'Venom: Let There Be Carnage' took Harry Nilsson’s 'One' and added an arsenal of menacing symphonics, the teaser for The Suicide Squad twisted the easy grooves of Steely Dan’s 'Dirty Work' into pummelling beats and the trailer for last year’s 'Wonder Women 1984' featured an epic reimagining of New Order’s 'Blue Monday'. Will Quiney, the theatrical music supervisor at trailer house GrandSon, explains: “You can create a narrative with your music selection. If you can come up with an amazing idea for a song and have that trailerised in a really cool way that blows them away, you’re going to beat the competition, you’re going to win that trailer.” says . “agrees: “Music is the secret sauce to a great trailer and the best trailer editors know how to make the most of it”.
The guitar industry has been struggling with scandals over illegal logging, resource scarcity and new environmental regulations related to trade in endangered species of trees. The Conversation went on a 6-year-long quest tracing guitar-making across five continents, looking at the timber used and the industry’s environmental dilemmas. A great piece of investigative (music) journalism.
"One of the great parts was he did embrace his age at 50. I thought this project was brilliant and masterful because it allowed him to be him. You see a lot of these legends, they come out with something and it’s just not them. They’re trying to be too cool and too down instead of just being themselves. But music is timeless; music doesn’t have an age limit on it. I think you age yourself when you try to not be yourself. And X just went at it. He said, 'Yo, I’m going to just do me, and that’s it'” - producer Swizz Beatz says in a Complex interview about DMX's final album 'Exodus'. It's the rapper's first new album in nine years, started after DMX’s epic Verzuz battle with Snoop Dogg in July 2020, and done in the course of two months. It has the most features the rapper has ever had on a project in his career - Griselda crew is there, Usher, Alicia Keys, Bono, Jay-Z and Nas.
Sony Music Group spent $1.4 billion on music acquisitions in the last six months, according to SMG Chairman Rob Stringer, MBW reports. According to Stringer, by Sony’s calculations - “in just the first four months of this year, music-related M&A and catalog investment activity was over $7 billion”. Sony estimated says that this $7 billion figure was “nearly equal to the total investment activity in the 12 months of 2020”.
