The best thing about the Elephant Trees is "that fearless enthusiasm, the upending of genre, and the life-affirming lyrics", PopMatters says about the new Manchester band. On their debut EP 'Monachopsis' they go from brooding synthpop to dynamic, growling alternative rock in a "first chapter in what promises to be a bold and fascinating story".
A great article in the Rolling Stone about Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend how they can't stand each other but still have a tour together and have even made an album. The record, called 'Who' and only the second album from the band in 37 years, was recorded without the two ever being in the […]
"Red Death are three albums in and sounding strong as hell. The secret, I think, is that they aren’t really a punk band anymore" - Stereogum says about their latest choice for Album of the week. "They’ve become a better version of who they always were", Stereogum writes, picking out guitarist Ace Mendoza - "a full-on […]
The Weeknd previewed a new single 'Blinding Lights' in a Mercedes ad, then unveiled the catchy '80s disco-pop song in an Apple Music radio show (listen below). He released one another - a Metro Boomin’-produced 'Heartless', listen lower below.
Love You Live is a new Billboard series about some of the "most outrageous, delightful and flat-out inspiring production elements of major tours". The first one - The Chainsmokers' World War Joy tour. How did they deserve the "outrageous" label? They had a 6,000-pound sphere Globe of Death hanging over audiences with three motorcyclists whipping around […]
Billboard made a selection of songs that "shaped and reflected the music and culture of the 2010s". Billboard explains "not all of them defined the decade at its best, but for better or worse, it’s close to impossible for us to imagine the decade without any of them". It's not all great music, but it's […]
Secondary ticketing firm Viagogo has struck a deal to buy its rival StubHub for $4bn, a deal that would create a global ticketing giant in the booming live-events business. Geneva-based company Viagogo is buying its rival from eBay, which bought StubHub in 2007 for $310m. Viagogo's boss Eric Baker will be reunited with StubHub, which […]
Guardian has an interesting article about music tourism, a relatively new type of commercial tourism characterised by people travelling somewhere attracted by music. One of the newest is Full Metal Cruise - a music cruise with thousands of metal fans listening to metal bands on a cruise ship. Only in the UK, music tourists spent […]
"Raw, melodic and imaginative black metal... nothing short of a sublime sonic experience" - Metal Injection writes in a review of 'The Palms of Sorrowed Kings' by Obsequiae. Angry Metal Guy calls it "a great album, featuring a stellar collection of dynamic, richly textured and memorable songs", and Brooklyn Vegan appreciates how accessible it is […]
LA Times sent classical music critic and pop music critic to see Kanye West's opera 'Nebuchadnezzar'. Judging by their words it was something, but not much - "if this thing had a story, it was pretty hard to tell", "You can call just about anything an opera", "this didn’t allow much of his gift to come […]
Guns N' Roses wrapped up their multi-year tour 'Not in This Lifetime' with $584.2 million grossed from 5,371,891 tickets sold. The comeback tour started in 2016, and they played 158 shows in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, as well as 31 European gigs, 15 in Asia, 15 in South America, eight dates in Australia and […]
British spoken-word artist and award-winning podcast creator George the Poet turned down an offer to become a Member of the Order of the British Empire because of the "pure evil" of the British Empire, BBC reports. He explained he sees himself "as student, admirer and friend of Britain, however the colonial trauma inflicted on the […]
"'Cotillions' is basically Billy making his version of a folk/country/Americana album, and at this point in his career, it’s more exciting to hear him do this than rehash '90s Smashing Pumpkins songs... It’s one of the few times in his career that he didn’t make a lofty, ambitious album. It turns out Billy Corgan can be pretty good […]
The 2010s were a revolutionary decade for the LGBTQ community - Billboard argues, rightly so, and makes a selection of the best LGBTQ album of the last ten years. The criteria: work by queer creatives. The albums are listed in alphabetical order, going from Adam Lambert's 'Trespassing' to Years & Years' 'Communion'.
Reviews go from five-star review in the Telegraph where the critic praises the usual Coldplay ingredients - "Martin’s golden gift for melody, almost simplistically direct lyrics and emotive crooning"; NME gave it 4 stars (out of five) saying - "the strengths of ‘Everyday Life’ lie in the band’s musical left turns and lyrical experiments"; Guardian […]
Taylor Swift won five competitive awards tonight at the American Music Awards, including the top prize of artist of the year, bringing her total tally of AMA wins over the course of her career to 28, breaking Michael Jackson's record of most AMA wins of all time (he won 24 AMAs). BTS and Khalid won three […]
Celine Dion's new album 'Courage' earned 113,000 equivalent album units last week in the USA, enough to climb the summit of Billboard 200. 'Courage' is her fifth No. 1 album, and her first chart-topper in over 17 years (last was 2002’s 'A New Day Has Come'). Billboard...
Acapop! KIDS are known for covering the hottest hits, and their latest addition to the series is 'Shallow' by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper from the movie 'The Star is Born', Billboard reports. Previously, the nine kids covered songs such as Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody', Amy Winehouse's 'Valerie', Post Malone's 'Sunflower'...
South Korean pop star Goo Hara was found dead at her home in Seoul on Sunday. Goo made her debut in 2008 as a member of the girl group Kara, which had big followings in South Korea, Japan and other Asian countries. She later worked as a solo artist and appeared on many TV shows. […]
"Rock isn't where the punk spirit is anymore really. It’s in hip hop, it’s in Cardi B" - Kim Gordon told the Quietus in a lengthy interview (they picked her solo album as one of the records of the year). tQ wondered how it is to be introverted and a performer - "talking about yourself […]
Guardian has an interesting essay about Sunn O))), especially about what did the American drone metal greats do to a change of perspective on metal music. "In an age where people crave spiritual meaning, psychological healing and escape from the hellscape of rolling news and the 'constant on' of social media in VR or expensive […]
Cult London label Blackest Ever Black has announced it is shutting down, after 10 years and more than 100 records from artists such as Carla dal Forno, Prurient, Raime, Silvia Kastel, Tropic Of Cancer, and more. Its final release is the ten-track low-key, melancholic compilation 'A short illness from which he never recovered', Fact Magazine […]
Coldplay will not be touring to promote their new album 'Everyday Life' because they are concerned over their concerts' environmental impact. The band last travelled the world with their 'A Head Full of Dreams Tour' in 2016 and 2017, and, as Chris Martin told the BBC, "our next tour will be the best possible version […]
"When I stopped drinking it felt like I’d been away and come back. It felt intense after I stopped drinking. It felt like I had been away and I don’t know what had been there in between but it wasn’t altogether me. I think alcoholism is possession, like spiritual possession" - Jaz Coleman, the Killing […]
“I feel like we’re in the end of art, human art. Once there’s actually AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), they’re gonna be so much better at making art than us" Grimes said in her recent appearance on astrophysicist Sean Carroll’s 'Mindscape' podcast, No good news from Grimes to concerts either - “I think live music is going to be […]
American rapper is donating clothes to inmates in the same Kronoberg prison in Sweden where he served time this year. Rocky’s attorney sent Kronoberg pictures of a uniform that appeared to be a “green tracksuit” with “PROMENVD” printed on the front. The rapper has an upcoming concert in Sweden on December 11 at the Ericsson […]
Director Cole Kush made a great video for a new song 'Gimme Summn' from TNGHT's comeback EP 'TNGHT II'. Kush has taken different computer-animated versions of producers Lunice and HudMo - the duo as babies, as adults, as tiny toys, as old men - and put them in various surreal scenarios. It turned out spooky-cool! Watch it […]
It is a "song about family, love, loss, and being thankful for it all", Alana Haim explained, as MTV reports. The song started to come to life when her friend was killed in a car accident. It took time to come to a finished song. Now it's done - it is a loving tribute. The […]
The make-up loving rockers played a concert for sharks in Australia last weekend - the band set up their show on a small boat in an Australian harbour. The concert had been billed as proof that sharks can be attracted to tour boats without the use of blood or bait. Eight people had bought tickets […]
Emma Banks, co-founder of the UK arm of one of the world's biggest music tour agents, has said musicians "have to be proactive" about the impact tours like that have on the environment, BBC reports. She says some artist's tours - Banks' roster at the Creative Artists Agency includes Katy Perry, Lorde, Kylie, Arcade Fire, […]
Classically trained violinist Ezinma played with Kendrick Lamar, SZA and Mac Miller, as well as with Beyoncé at her historic Coachella set, but her solo career really took off when she filmed herself playing along to Future's 'Mask Off'. The video went viral and landed Ezinma a deal with Decca Records, who recently released her debut EP, 'Classical Bae' - which puts a new spin on Beethoven's 'Fifth Symphony' and Bach's 'G Major Prelude', amongst others. BBC talked to the musician.
Music impacts blood pressure, body chemistry, brain rhythms, heart rate, body temperature, psychological attitude and a host of other factors. which makes it an audio-steroid, Ted Gioia argues examining the role of music in athletic performances. The research of professor Costas I. Karageorghis has shown the value of music in building team cohesion, creating dissociative mindsets that may reduce pain or fatigue, and almost any other sports parameter imaginable. USA Track & Field, the governing body regulating the sport, saw music as a threat - it imposed a ban in 2006 on headsets and portable audio players at races “to prevent runners from having a competitive edge".
Sober 21 is a free PDF zine with essays by, and interviews with, sober musicians like Brad Truax (Interpol), Cait O’Riordan (The Pogues), Darryl “D.M.C” McDaniels (Run-DMC), John Grant, Mix Master Mike (Beastie Boys), Nile Rodgers (Chic), Peter Hook, Moby and others. Zine's goal is to "help other alcoholic/drug-addicted musicians see the amazing freedom, and benefit to our art, that we found in sobriety by sharing our own experiences".
“There was a 360 portal and you could go step on stage with them, and you could pick your camera angles” - Christian Guirnalda, director of Verizon’s 5G Labs, told Rolling Stone about the recent Black Pumas show, recorded at company's Los Angeles 5G Labs. Producers filmed in 4K video on a camera connected to Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network, which can create a “visually lossless” experience that “eliminates the side effects of image compression that’s visible to the naked eye”. There was no postproduction, either - all the visuals were rendered in real time. Rolling Stone believes this is the future, even after the live shows return.
“It really comes down to WHO is at these events" - DJ Cakewals says to DJ Mag about clubbing events coming back in the US, in light of the pandemic slowing down there. It's the nuances that will matter: "How serious is the crowd and promoter taking precautions? And for how long? Will the security or person [in charge of] monitoring the crowd just get lazy after a couple hours? Hold each other accountable, even if it’s uncomfortable!”.
"I feel that having a No. 1 record derailed my career, and my tearing the photo put me back on the right track” - Sinead O'Connor writes in her memoir 'Remembering' about tearing up a photo of Pope John Paul II, which essentially killed her career. When she became a pop star - “the media was making me out to be crazy because I wasn’t acting like a pop star was supposed to act. It seems to me that being a pop star is almost like being in a type of prison. You have to be a good girl", she says to the New York Times in an interview.
Amaro Freitas shares a Brazilian bossa-nova jazz smoothie 'Baquaqua'; cabaret-punk is pretty much an accurate description for Callum Easter's 'What You Think?'; Jorja Smith's 'Time's shortness is made up for with her great voice; dubby dream-pop meets electronica on 'Lost and Found' by Corbu and Doves' Jimi Goodwin; John Grant continues his streak of great songs which announce his new album, the latest one is a dramatic take on masculinity called 'Billy'; Anthetic start at ambient, end up at dark electro with 'Scope'.
"When you are working with bands, who have no concept of time, you have to have lots of patience. I usually describe my job as 90% sitting in hotels lobbies waiting for people to turn up and 10% photography" - photographer Kevin Cummins says in The New Cue interview. He talks about his 71-track 4CD compilation 'Caught Beneath The Landslide: The Other Side of Britpop and the ‘90s', accompanying his latest photo-book 'While We Were Getting High: Britpop and the ‘90s'. A bit of advice he would give his teenage self - "be confident. Always listen and learn".
'The Right to Rock' tells the story of Filipino American sisters June and Jean Millington who in the late 19602 formed ferocious garage band Fanny. They were the first all-women band signed to a multi-album major label, and who used this platform to fight racism, sexism, and homophobia. "With members nearing age 70, it’s wonderful to see Fanny connecting with a new generation of listeners" - MJI writes presenting Bobbi Jo Hart’s documentary.
ouTube Shorts has launched its ‘Shorts Fund’ worth $100 million that will be distributed to its creators over the course of 2021-2022, TechCrunch reports. Shorts Fund will be available to anyone creating original content for Shorts, with the company saying “thousands of creators” will be paid for their content on Shorts through the Fund. Creators won’t be able to apply for the fund. Instead, YouTube will reach out and reward creators whose videos have exceeded certain milestones each month, including engagement and view counts.
