"When I think about artists who grew up in a time where you could only have one genre and one look, and couldn’t change that ever ... that must have been torturous. It’s really cool that I get to do this in a time when it’s more freeing" - Billie Eilish said in a recent […]
The Canadian indie-rock singer-songwriter has spent a year writing one song a week. He then whittled it down to 14 songs that will come out in February on album 'I Know Now Why You Cry', Exclaim reports. First single from it 'I've Got a Bottle' - about a bottle... of ink... and drink as well […]
In March 2016, Major Lazer played an outdoor concert in Havana for half a million people. Then the Rolling Stones gave their first-ever show in Cuba, a massive free event that for many Cubans symbolized the dawn of a new era. Since 2017 a series of travel regulations and economic sanctions have been put in […]
BC's selection is different from the most other big outlets, plus we like BandCamp, so here it is, their 100. The top 10 - mostly albums that others don't feature: 10. False - 'Portent' 9. Helado Negro - 'This Is How You Smile' 8. Ex Hex - 'It’s Real' 7. Jamila Woods - 'LEGACY! LEGACY!' […]
Longtime Wu-Tang Clan affiliate and spiritual mentor to the group, Popa Wu has died aged 63. Popa Wu was the older cousin of Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA and also related to GZA and Ol’ Dirty Bastard. He played a crucial role in the group’s formation and would go on to serve as a spiritual advisor of sorts, preaching […]
The aggregation site Album of the Year compiled End of Decade lists by two dozen magazines. Turns out the majority of artists on the list were already superstars when they made their decade-defining albums - The Outline notices, and tries to explain in an interesting article. Also, they analyze what music critics are today. Below […]
Brooklyn Vegan first got to know about John Myrtle through 'Lodge 49' soundtrack, thinking he was some obscure 1960s guy. Turns out - he's a young London singer/songwriter. They brought him up because he is "charming, all within the well-dressed jaunty psych pop world... John’s got the perfect warm, slightly reedy voice for this kind […]
Composers, singers, and musicians were among the millions imprisoned in Naci concentration camps. Under the bleakest conditions imaginable there, they performed and wrote music. Italian composer and pianist Francesco Lotoro has spent 30 years recovering, performing, and in some cases, finishing pieces of work composed in captivity. CBS has the heart-warming story...
Mariah Carey's classic Christmas song 'All I Want For Christmas is You' has topped the US charts - 25 years after it was first released, Billboard reports. When the hit song made its debut in 1994 it was as an EP and not a single, meaning it wasn't allowed to compete in Billboard's Hot 100. […]
Fact Magazine made a collection of the best 2019 club music. What is to be found there is: individual, subjective and collective strategies for coping with the alienation; denaturalized, yet organic sounds; borders between club, footwork, hardcore and jungle; linking the populist big room techno that seems to be everywhere these days with a keen […]
Rik Burt from Braintree, Essex in the U.K. paid homage to local legend Keith Flint of the Prodigy with a light display featuring more than 3,000 bulbs that flash in sync with 'Out of Space', 'Warriors Dance' and 'Omen', Essex Live reports. The music was all mixed in sync to the lights by Burt's 14-year-old neighbour Ben […]
On-and-off Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante is back in the band again, after ten years of absence. Frusciante first joined the band in 1988 and wrote and recorded 1989’s 'Mother’s Milk' and 1991’s 'Blood Sugar Sex Magik' with the band. He left in 1992 and then rejoined in 1998 to do 'Californication', 'By the Way', and 'Stadium Arcadium' with the RHCP. He left […]
"Prodigious talent delivers game-changing debut. When did you last hear a genuinely new sound?!" - NME says about their pick for the album of the year. 50th on the list is a bit less obvious - "a break-up and its fallout, via the medium of wispy pop"; 'Good at Falling' by The Japanese House. Check out the […]
Compton rapper Roddy Ricch climbs to the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 chart with his debut studio album, 'Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial', Billboard reports. The set starts with 101,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Dec. 12, out of it SEA units comprise 98,000 (equaling 130.7 […]
Test best new music
The Voidz have released a new "sweetly chill and rather charming pop" song 'Did My Best', with a funny video to go with it with band members hitting on to - sex dolls; Grimes is out with a drum-and-bass inspired '4ÆM'; Peter Bjorn and John are back with a "self-aggrandizing blues love song" 'Idionsynchracy'; Kings […]
"Hip-hop is both a reflection and a force on its environment. Lean, mud, drank—whatever you wanna call it— has been intricately weaved into the cultural fabric and business model. Most don’t realize the full extent of its reach" - Trapital writes about rappers' addiction to cough syrup, in the shadow of Juice WRLD's death.
The British singer rose to the top of UK's album chart with his new album 'You're In My Heart', orchestral reimagining of his biggest hits. Stewart's new album was released on November 22, but it rose to the top spot this week in a close race - with a difference of just 750 in sales […]
"It’s the same winning mix of grime bangers and radio friendly singing as last time, but, crucially, it’s better at making sure they work together on the same project" - Clash Music says in review of grime star Stormzy's new album 'Heavy is the Head'. Alexis Petridis chose it as his latest Album of the week, […]
Moses Sumney released a new song 'Polly', second single from his upcoming double album 'græ'. The first half of that album is coming out in February, second half in May. 'Polly' is the closing track to the first half of 'græ', a simple acoustic love song, accompanied by a one-take video with plenty of tears... Watch […]
Amazon bought the worldwide rights for Rihanna documentary, which will be directed by Peter Berg, for a reported $25 million. Rihanna, as producers say, is “an unfiltered look into Rihanna’s life, providing a glimpse into the evolution of one of the world’s most well-known pop artists". Last week Apple TV+ reportedly bought a Billie Eilish […]
It’s the shows that go deep on specific albums, individual songs, or particular artists that can be so valuable for music fans - Stereogum says about their choice of the best podcasts of 2019. 'People's Party' is about Talib Kweli, but it’s also a show about culture, politics, writing, comedy, self-actualization, sports; 'This Particular Album […]
An impressive project by the Los Angeles Times – a 50-song mixtape attempting to locate musical intersections both physical and thematic.
Experimental metal band Wrekmeister Harmonies has Swans’ Thor Harris and Xiu Xiu mastermind Jamie Stewart featuring on their new album ‘We Love to Look at the Carnage’, out February 21.
Taylor Swift was named Billboard's woman of the decade on Thursday night, and she used the occasion to criticise "toxic male privilege" in the music industry. "Women in music are not allowed to coast," she observed, and added - "we are held at a higher, sometimes impossible-feeling, standard". She said that in her early days, […]
31-year-old flute-playing singer and rapper was named Time magazine 2019's entertainer of the year. Why her? - "At a time when Instagrammers are shilling flat-tummy tea or pretending to eat a giant cheeseburger, Lizzo sells something more radical: the idea that you are already enough".
It's a standard now to have Brooklyn Vegan making the best selection on new songs. This week they're not all great, but some do stand out. This week it's: Stormzy with his "hardest, darkest, and most booming" song 'Audacity'; Sam Lee's 'The Moon Shines Bright' with Celtic vibe and Elisabeth Fraser on vocals (below); The […]
An impressive project by the Los Angeles Times - a 50-song mixtape attempting to locate musical intersections both physical and thematic. They picked out a whole lot of musicians - Kanye West, Lana Del Rey, Kendrick Lamar, Devendra Banhart... landing them in LA. An entertaining ride.
NPR has an encouraging article about people in Appalachias use instrument building as a way of overcoming opioid addiction. Their approach is occupational therapy - it attempts to engage people in meaningful activities, which helps them think about something else other than addiction, and even recovery. The build wooden string instruments like guitars, banjos, dulcimers, […]
Grimes made a playlist with her, Bjork, Massive Attack, Cocteau Twins and others on in, lobbying to make "ethereal" a genre. She usually disagrees with the idea of genre as such, and believes her music "doesn't fit into any existing format or genre" and "therefore cannot be on playlists or radio", Brooklyn Vegan reports. She […]
Over 600 musicians have signed an open letter Musicians for Palestine expressing their support for Palestine and urging their fellow performers to boycott shows in Israel. Signatories include Rage Against the Machine, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, Serj Tankian of System of a Down, Run the Jewels, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Black Thought and Questlove of The Roots, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, Chromeo, Nicolas Jaar, Noname, and Owen Pallett. In an open letter, the group denounced the recent Israeli attacks against Palestine while demanding “justice, dignity and the right to self-determination for the Palestinian people and all who are fighting colonial dispossession and violence across the planet".
EXIT Festival - which takes place at Novi Sad, Serbia across 8th-11th July - will offer 1,500 coronavirus vaccines to international artists and festivalgoers attending the event this summer, DJ Mag reports. David Guetta, Paul van Dyk, Paul Kalkbrenner, Eric Prydz B2B Four Tet, and Honey Dijon feature in this year's line-up. On the other side of the musical spectrum, the UK Download festival - which will take place from June 18-20 - will allow 10,000 attendees to “mosh, dance and hug”, the Evening Standard reports. All attendees will have to take a lateral flow test at home beforehand, and will also need to send a PCR test by post prior to the event. Only those with negative results will be allowed onto the festival site. Five days after the event, those who went to the festival will have to take a second PCR test, and send it off to the Events Research Programme.
Singer John Davis, the true vocal talent behind notorious pop duo Milli Vanilli, has died from coronavirus at the age of 66, Variety reports. Fronted by Fabrice Morvan and Rob Pilatus, Milli Vanilli sold more than 30 million singles, but were stripped of a Grammy Award after it emerged they lip-synced on hits they had never recorded. Davis and other fellow session singers provided vocals on Millie Vanilli's album 'Girl You Know It's True', which sold 11 million copies, but were only listed as backing singers, with Morvan and Pilatus falsely given credit. After the lip-syncing scandal, Davis and fellow original singer Brad Howell formed The Real Milli Vanilli. In later years Davis performed alongside Morvan as part of their collaborative project Face Meets Voice.
Former Led Zeppelin singer talks in his 'Digging Deep' podcast about how he spent the lockdown cleaning up his house, finding on the way plenty of music he worked on and never released. Plant says there's some "incredible" and "great" music there. He's instructed his kids to make it all available for free "when I kick the bucket".
Mashable explores the incoming reality where artificial intelligence make music. Their main idea is that the evolution of technology always included some kind of progress in music. With AI in music the plus side is - "they're never late. The downside? Creepiness, obviously".
'Afrique Victime' is the new, awesome album by the Touareg guitarist Mdou Moctar who made a list of albums, artists, songs and styles that made him the musician he is now. The Quietus assembled the list, which includes Van Halen, Abdallah Oumbadogou ("the founder, the source of my music"), Khaira Arby ("a golden voice"), Malam Maman Barka ("insanely good, totally insane"), Bob Marley ("a revolutionary and he’s someone who loved peace"), Tinariwen ("you have to write things to encourage people").
BTS' new single 'Butter' broke the record for the most viewed YouTube music video in its first 24 hours with 108,200,000 views on Friday, May 21. After the single dropped on Spotify it garnered 11,042,335 global streams in just one day, breaking the record for the most streamed track on Spotify in the first 24 hours, Guinness World Records reports. Also, as of 27 April 2021, the music of BTS had been streamed 16.3 billion times on Spotify, breaking the record for the most streamed act on Spotify.
Brazilian freelance writer Beatriz Miranda wrote a piece for the Music Journalism Insider about the Bizz, a music magazine that arrived in 1985, after the country suffocated two decades of civil-military dictatorship. The first issue of the Bizz sold a staggering 120,000 copies.
Spotify announced its new Fresh Finds program, which will spotlight indie musicians in marketing campaigns and equip them with a variety of educational tools, Music Ally reports. The program is a spin-off of the Fresh Finds playlist, which has added more than 25,000 emerging artists since its launch five years ago. In 2021, about half of the artists added to the playlist previously had fewer than 21,000 monthly listeners, but the average artist sees their listens increase by 108% in the month after being playlist, according to Spotify. The first four Fresh Finds program artists are Wallice, Unusual Demont, Julia Wolf, and EKKSTACY. For now, the Fresh Finds program is U.S.-only, but Spotify is expanding the reach of the Fresh Finds playlists, adding new regional versions in 13 territories including the U.K., South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as other parts of Asia, Europe, and Latin America.
New Hampshire police have published a warrant for the arrest of Marilyn Manson on two counts of simple assault, regarding a spitting incident involving a videographer at a concert in August 2019, the New York Times reports. Manson's lawyer Howard King said that a venue videographer had asked for more than $35,000 “after a small amount of spit came into contact with their arm. After we asked for evidence of any alleged damages, we never received a reply". The misdemeanor claim can carry a jail sentence of up to one year and a $2,000 fine. Manson, real name Brian Warner, has been accused of sexual and mental abuse by two former romantic partners, Evan Rachel Wood and Esme Bianco.
