American space-rock band Duster are "your favorite indie band’s favorite indie band", almost forgotten but profoundly influential band, whose last album came out 20 years ago. This week they're back with their third album 'Duster', the one Stereogum picked out among others released this week because - "heavy and sludgy, and any sense of urgency is […]
Ed Sheeran's albums spent 41 weeks in total at the top of UK album chart this decade, his singles spent 38, making a total of 79 weeks – more than any other artist, the Official Charts Company announced. No other artist meanwhile has spent more time in the Top 40 UK singles chart than Sheeran’s […]
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. The album “charts a restless journey beginning in the middle of the night and ending in the small hours of the morning”, with Harris doing […]
Unlimited access to a catalog of 50 million songs for $10 is how much music-streaming subscriptions have cost their entire existence, but next year that might change, Rolling Stone is speculating. The first reason - Spotify recently entered its second decade of existence towing 250 million users, 110 million of whom are paying subscribers; when […]
Both Stereogum and PopMatters made their lists of best jazz albums of 2019 and the lists don't coincide much, which is interesting to see since both websites come from contemporary pop-music milieu. Stereogum chose Jaimie Branch's 'Fly Or Die II: Bird Dogs Of Paradise' as the jazz album of the year, while PM divided its […]
Prince‘s 1984 film 'Purple Rain', Martin Scorsese’s classic concert film for the Band, 'The Last Waltz', and Milos Forman’s movie 'Amadeus' about Mozart have been added to the US Library of Congress’ National Film Registry for this year. The Library of Congress adds 25 films to the registry annually, recognising aesthetically, culturally, or historically significant films that showcase “the […]
London hardcore band Game have the best punk album of the year with their debut 'No One Wins', according to the Quietus. The rest of the Top 10 is filled by Implement, Petlya, Terra Soror, Haiboku, Rainbow Grawe, PlasticHeads, Enzyme, Soga, Disguise. No One Wins by Game
"Fandom is intoxicating. Anyone who truly, wholly loves a boy band or a football team will tell you the same. But there’s something transcendent about the way Elvis fans love Elvis. It’s eternal" - Guardian's journalist writes about Elvis Presley festival that she went to planning to make good jokes about it, but ended up joining the […]
Canadian producer Kaytranada released his new single, '10%', which features Kali Uchis (watch below). It comes on his second studio album 'Bubba', out this Friday, featuring contributions from Pharrell Williams, Tinashe, GoldLink, Charlotte Day Wilson, Estelle, VanJess, Masego, Mick Jenkins, and SiR, among others, The Fader reports. Kaytranada won Polaris Music Prize - Canadian Album of the Year […]
Loudwire chose Ghost mastermind Tobias Forge for the Metal Artist of the Decade. Loudwire discussed Ghost’s progression from underground doom favorites to an arena phenomenon, as well as development of Papa Emeritus II character to Papa Emeritus III to Cardinal Copia. Watch below Forge playing his favourite riffs.
For the full list go here; the top 10 are below: 10. Purple Mountains: 'Purple Mountains'9. Weyes Blood: 'Titanic Rising'8. Fennesz: 'Agora'7. Helado Negro: 'This Is How You Smile'6. Bad Bunny: 'X 100PRE'5. Solange: 'When I Get Home'4. Angel Olsen: 'All Mirrors'3. Big Thief: 'U.F.O.F.'2. FKA twigs: 'MAGDALENE'1. Lana Del Rey: 'Norman Fucking Rockwell!'
As the singer of Roxette, Fredriksson was one of the most recognisable voices in 1980s pop. She dies on Monday, aged 61, Rolling Stone reports. Roxette left their mark in music with some not too cheesy hits - ‘Joyride’, ‘It Must Have Been Love’, ‘Listen To Your Heart’, ‘The Look'...
Brian Eno has released a new song 'Everything’s on the Up with the Tories', a political satire aimed at UK's Conservative Party (colloquially known as The Tories). It's a fun song, about some not-so-funny subjects like Brexit, National Health Service, unemployment, the pay gap, Donald Trump. All proceeds from it go to aid the homeless.
Police say they found guns and drugs on the private jet that carried rapper Juice Wrld to Chicago before he died on Sunday morning. Officers say they found 70 pounds (31 kilos) of marijuana in 41 "vacuum-sealed" bags, six bottles of prescription codeine cough syrup, two 9 mm pistols, a .40-caliber pistol, a high-capacity ammunition […]
Here the full 70 list; the top 10 spots are taken by the following: 10. Purple Mountains – 'Purple Mountains' 9. Big Thief - 'U.F.O.F.' 8. Angel Olsen – 'All Mirrors' 7. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – 'Ghosteen' 6. Jamila Woods – 'LEGACY! LEGACY!' 5. Dave - 'PSYCHODRAMA' 4. Fontaines D.C. - 'Dogrel' […]
In addition to all the new names, established artists like redefined themselves, and visionaries took their art to new heights, Pitchfork says about their list of 100 best songs of 2019. Shawn Mendes' 'If I Can’t Have You' and FKA twigs' 'cellophane' stand on the edges of that list. Check out the full list here.
So, in categories - for Best Original Score – Motion Picture the nominees are Alexandre Desplat for 'Little Women', Hildur Guðnadóttir for 'Joker', Randy Newman for 'Marriage Story', Thomas Newman for '1917', and Daniel Pemberton for 'Motherless Brooklyn'. Best Original Song – Motion Picture nominees include Andrew Lloyd Webber & Taylor Swift‘s 'Beautiful Ghosts' from […]
A Chilean protest song 'Un Violador en Tu Camino' ('A Rapist in Your Path') about rape culture and victim shaming has become a viral anthem for feminists around the world. The song was first performed in late November as Chile’s nationwide uprising against social inequality pushed into its second month. Videos of the song – […]
This month’s edition od Fact Magazine's For Club Use Only segment features some strong and angry underground club music like Capital Caos, El Irreal Veintiuno, Lila Tirando A Violeta, Nick Catchdubs, etc. Listen to the mix in full - here.
Kanye West staged his sophomore opera, 'Mary', at the Miami Marine Stadium as part of the final day of Art Basel on Sunday, with him covered fully in silver, Pitchfork reports. The opera tells the Christmas nativity story through Gospel arrangements of Kanye’s own songs, including 'Devil in a New Dress', 'Love Lockdown', and 'Power', as well […]
"Those simple opinions have carved out a mini-empire and made him the most famous music critic on the planet. Whether you love him, rate him, don’t know what to rate him, the fact that his unfiltered discussions continue to capture millions proves that fans are more eager than ever to dissect the nuances and intricacies of […]
'The Frozen 2' soundtrack climbs to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart with 80,000 equivalent album units sold in its third week, Billboard reports. 'Frozen 2' is the first new full-length soundtrack to reach No. 1 for the first time in 2019. It’s also the first soundtrack of an animated film to hit […]
American rapper Juice WRLD has died suddenly at the age of 21, TMZ reports. Juice WRLD, a.k.a. Jarad Anthony Higgins, had arrived at Chicago's Midway Airport on Sunday following a flight from Los Angeles and suffered a seizure in the terminal. He was alive when paramedics arrived on the scene but was pronounced dead at a local […]
Last month Scarypoolparty released his debut album 'Exit Form' where "he blends the moody, bold electro-rock of Nine Inch Nails with powerful and sincere vocals that bring to mind fellow Idol runner-up Adam Lambert", the Guardian says. Shore Fire like the album even more - "showcases Aranda’s musical and emotional range, expertly fusing fast-paced walls of […]
Mix Magazine explores influences Instagram has on artists' mental health with particular focus on comment sections, unwanted feedback and how these dangers magnify when it comes to DJs and producers from marginalised communities. Mix Mag proves a point to some extent, but largely just proves the obvious - there's way more good than harm from […]
Freddie Gibbs and Madlib visited NPR's offices and performed four songs at a Tiny Desk Concert. The duo played songs from their 2019 album 'Bandana' alongside New York-based funk band El Michels Affair. Watch it below.
Taylor Swift has topped Forbes‘ annual list of the world’s highest-paid musicians with $185m made in pre-tax earnings from June 2018 to June 2019. The bulk of Swift’s earnings came thanks to a new record deal, an array of endorsements and the tail end of her recent ‘Reputation’ stadium tour. Kanye West came in second […]
Brooklyn Vegan has an interesting year-end segment - favourite albums chosen by various musicians. The idea is great, the results so-so. Mostly, the lists are either too narrow or just what you'd expect. Except from the Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle. He's got some straight indie-rock -Purple Mountains and Big Thief, modern hip-hop - clipping., metal - […]
Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett surprise-released her 'MTV Australia Unplugged Live In Melbourne' this week, closing the set with a beautiful cover of Leonard Cohen’s 'So Long, Marianne' (watch below). The album is out digitally - on Bandcamp.
On Monday SoundCloud announced they will be setting up a free upload limit to 15 tracks. On Thursday they abandoned the idea. But the damage was done. Twitter pushed its “decentralized and open-source” streaming service Audius (free, unlimited upload) in the meantime, and another competing service Audiomack started s new ad campaign - "always free, […]
TikTok is launching TikTok Radio this summer, a full-time SiriusXM music channel, Music Business Worldwide reports. It will be available in vehicles and as a streaming channel on the SiriusXM App, desktop, and all connected devices. TikTok Radio is pitched as a radio version of TikTok’s For You page, a discovery tool for trending videos, and it will be presented by TikTok creators, tastemakers, and DJs.
"A time machine through the origins of metal music, its connection to darkness and decadence, the lifestyle of many of its followers and how its upped the ante on the phrase 'sex, drugs and rock n’ roll'" - reads the introduction to 'Backstaged: The Devil in Metal' podcast. The latest episode goes into the originators - Black Sabbath.
To make it easier to navigate their expansive archives, Pitchfork has created the Reviews Explorer, an interactive tool designed to help you discover new albums, rediscover old ones. Type an artist’s name into the search bar, select that artist from the dropdown menu, and see their reviews, plus reviews of similar artists, arranged by rating in a graphic interface. You can also filter the results to show which album recommendations are designated as “Best New Music” releases, and sort reviews by date.
"There’s a vast array of different kinds of Dylan covers: R&B singers love relaxing into the contours of 'Lay Lady Lay'; country singers like his rootsy stuff; indie-rockers key into his sad side; heroic rock singers love scaling the peaks of open-ended classics - like 'It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue' or 'Like a Rolling Stone' - finding their own way to make new meanings amidst the intersecting, and often contradictory, emotions and ideas that can roil around within one Dylan song" - Rolling Stone writes introducing their selection of 80 best Bob Dylan covers, from Jimi Hendrix, Joan Baez, and the Byrds to William Shatner, Adele, and the Roots.
The number of artists making $25,000 on Twitch has grown 16x since the pandemic started. For those making $50,000 or more, the median viewership is 183 fans, which makes for $274 per fan - Twitch’s VP Head of Music, Tracy Chan, said on the Trapital podcast. He also talked about how artists make money on the platform, finding 100 True Fans, and the creator economy. Chan also worked at Spotify and YouTube to build their creator platforms.
Megadeth have parted ways with their original bassist and co-founder David Ellefson amid allegations of sexual impropriety, Next Mosh reports. Sexually explicit video of Ellefson, age 56, masturbating and photos of flirtatious exchanges with a woman surfaced online earlier this month. At the time, rumors spread online that he had been grooming an underage fan. He vehemently denied the accusations and posted a statement from the woman he claimed he had sent the material to who said she was of age the whole time they were in contact.
Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood presented their new band, The Smile, during a surprise appearance at Glastonbury's Live at Worthy Farm webcast on Saturday, NME reports. The band of true greats also featurs jazz drummer Tom Skinner of Sons of Kemet. The Smile revealed their existence hours before the livestream officially kicked off.
"The band offers us a contrasted 'Skeleton Lake' between darkness and softness, oppression and deliverance, but also heaviness and soaring sonorities that only strengthen their seizing basis made of an ageless duality" - Acta Infernalis reviews the new album by the Finnish melodic death metal/doom metal/goth band Hanging Garden. Metal Trenches argues "the beautiful and somber atmosphere is at its highest level", whereas Metal Temple hears the whole band collaborating "so finely to enrich the music of the band, from black screams to death growls to hyper clean vocals, even to whispers, a fair amount of each".
"I’ve spent a lot of my career writing about the 'emo revival' and it often feels like writers who cover this stuff are constantly in defense mode, myself included. I wish it wasn’t such an uphill battle to talk about this type of music compared to the type of indie rock that gets consensus critical acclaim, especially when the music itself isn’t all that different" - Brooklyn Vegan's Andrew Sacher says in the Music Journalism Insider interview about genres being mostly ignored by the mainstream media. "In 2021 so far alone, we’ve seen some big 10th anniversary pieces go up for debut albums by Joyce Manor, Title Fight, and Balance and Composure, and what’s really clear to me, is that people are REALLY reacting positively to these pieces. These are classic albums to a generation of music fans in their early 20s right now, and these albums got basically no press when they came out, outside of punk-specific websites. In 2021, those albums seem a lot more important than a lot of the stuff that had consensus critical acclaim in 2011".
"It was really fun to play and to be in a really great Batman movie. And to be a villain! I put a hallucinogenic in Gotham City’s water supply. I had my own trial. I was in mental asylum, I tried to murder and probably rape Katie Holmes, I got clobbered by Batman. What more can you ask!" - James' Tim Booth says in The New Cue interview about his Batman role. There's also a funny anecdote: "One of my funniest moments from that is I'd go into makeup for hours every day where they put scars on me for two hours. On about the sixth day I'm sitting in a makeup chair and Batman's in there in his regalia. Christian Bale stays in character on set the whole time. He's sitting there in his full Batman outfit, doesn’t say anything to me. Then he finishes his makeup and gets up and he goes and stands behind me and in the Batman voice he says, 'Are you Tim?' 'Yeah…' And he goes, 'From the band James?' 'Yeah…' ''Laid' saved my life. I love that fucking album'. He walked out and I'm sitting there going, ‘Holy shit, Batman likes our album!’ It was one of the funniest and loveliest moments because he stayed in character. When he was in casuals he was Bruce Wayne, which I didn't realise. I had great conversations with him. I hung out with him quite a bit on set. I thought, ‘What a nice man.’ And then later I realised that he was hanging out with me as Bruce Wayne, which was really quite a mind fuck". James release their new album 'All The Colours of You' on June 4.
