"Vocals and music need to meet at the right cross section to bring in a listener and keep them there. Atlanta’s folk/R&B fusionist Faye Webster deftly combines those elements to create songs like 'Right Side of My Neck', which are able to lure listeners in and maintain an immediacy that keeps them from drifting away“ […]
A new Swedish study found that 73 percent of independent musicians reported suffering from mental illness symptoms in the past. The survey conducted among nearly 1,500 indie musicians showed that nearly three-quarters of indie musicians have experienced "stress, anxiety and/or depression" in relation to their work. The numbers were worse for younger artists: Among those aged […]
BBC's journalist had a challenge - to see 16 gigs in just 12 hours. He tried it at Brighton's Great Escape Festival, which hosts more than 400 bands in two dozen venues over three days, and - succeeded! Most of the 16 bands he saw (in 11 hours) are newcomers - "no-one was a total […]
Björk debuted her new stage show, ‘Cornucopia’ in New York City, which she describes as her “most elaborate stage concert yet, where the acoustic and digital will shake hands, encouraged by a bespoke team of collaborators”. The show was "100 minutes of a nearly overwhelming array of sounds and images, a true feast for the senses […]
Netflix has a news horror-series 'Chambers' and it revolves around Stone Roses line “I don’t have to sell my soul / He’s already in me”, from their classic ‘I Wanna Be Adored’, NME reports. It's about a teenager who has a heart transplant who develops a relationship with donor's parents. Along the way, in 'Chambers' we […]
"Things happen in childhood that both form us and break us. And then in adulthood, we try to basically fix the ways in which we were broken as children" Moby says PopMatters in a very candid interview. He just published an autobiography 'Then it Fell Apart', where he describes how childhood traumas "lead us to […]
More than 250,000 tents get left behind by festival-goers in UK, although they can, ofcourse, be used again. The Association of Independent Festivals (represents more than 60 independent festivals) are urging big shops to stop marketing them as "festival tents" which gives the impression they can be used only once, BBC reports. AIF says the […]
Stereogum has a great read (in a literal sense as well) about what indie rock means today, compared to 2009, since the last week's Just Like Heaven festival had just the perfect 2009-ish line up: Phoenix, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, MGMT, Beach House, Grizzly Bear, The Rapture etc. "Just Like Heaven didn’t have to acknowledge any […]
“The time was right for us to tell our own story for the first time in our own words” said John Paul Jones about the Led Zeppelin documentary, the first official one. The film is directed by British film-maker Bernard MacMahon, director of 'American Epic', a four-part documentary exploring roots music across the US. Led […]
Veronika Nikulshina of the Russian art activists Pussy Riot has been taken into police custody in Moscow. Police told Nikulshina she was being arrested because “a group of young people have damaged a piece of government property”, but the group described it as “yet another absurd claim by the police without any official accusations filed”, […]
Imagine Dragons are scheduled to perform at UEFA's Champions League final opening ceremony, one of the biggest sports events in the world. The stars of the finals are Liverpool and Tottenham, but Lasvegians are gonna try to steal part of the show from the Englishmen. The final takes place on Saturday, June 1, at the […]
Ed Sheeran has doubled his wealth in the last year to £160m, and he is now the 17th richest musician in the UK and Ireland, according to the Sunday Times Rich List. In 2018, Sheeran is thought to have earned more than any other musician in a single year in history, from a world tour […]
The most famous face of science on TV, Sir David Attenborough is seeking a DJ to remix a field recording he made in Bali 70 years ago. He's got a three-minute recording of sacred gamelan music taped in 1954 while searching for a Komodo dragon, and now wants a DJ to turn it into a […]
Florida’s Ultra Music Festival is leaving Miami after 21 years, in search of a new permanent home in South Florida. Ultra had been primarily held at Bayfront Park, but ih 2018 the city of Miami ousted the festival from its then-home citing noise complaints among the reasons. The event relocated to Miami’s Virginia Key island […]
The direct-to-fan music crowdfunding platform PledgeMusic, which recently came under fire for withholding payments to artists, is heading for bankruptcy after plans to sell the company fell through. Zhe result of the unfulfilled payments left many musicians who had crowdfunded on the platform unable to deliver promised merchandise to those who had given them money. Now it appears […]
Accountant Andrew Munday, 38, has been jail for five years and eight months for defrauding Rita Ora out of almost £2.4 million over seven years. Munday used the money he took from the pop star to buy houses and Star Wars memorabilia, as well as membership at Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. Sky News...
Guardian's picks for songs of the month of May is AWE-SOME!!! Made with the summer in mind there's: FKA Twigs power-ballad 'Cellophane' about fame obsession; Carly Rae Jepsen's dancey number 'Julien'; Dorian Electra's 'Flamboyant' - imagine Elton John and Freddie Mercury's imaginary son going "all the way"; Bruce Springsteen's 'Hello Sunshine' - made for driving […]
Consequence of Sound argues that Vampire Weekend may be "the most important band of the ’00s indie era still operating at the end of the ’10s". They've maintained popularity and "level of quality while simultaneously tweaking their formula to reflect the tastes of the day within the band’s own prism of evolving talents". The others - […]
‘Mercedes Marxist’ is Bristol punks' first new track of 2019, and their first original release since last year's critically acclaimed album 'Joy As An Act of Resistance'. 'MM' will be a part of Idles' third album, and singer Joe Talbot explains to NME, how now they want to "write more techno, we want to write […]
"On 'Young Enough', Charly Bliss have brightened and broadened their sound, adding new clarity and texture without sacrificing any of the full-speed-ahead immediacy that they had on 'Guppy'... The melodic intensity never lets up over the course of 40-or-so minutes. It’s a fun record to an almost exhausting degree" - Stereogum reviews Brooklyn power-pop band's second album; […]
A reel-to-reel tape featuring three unreleased David Bowie demos will be auctioned later this month in England. Bowie recorded the demos for his debut album in 1967, but none of the songs made the final cut. The tape includes the 'Did You Ever Have a Dream' (which landed on Bowie’s 1981 compilation 'Another Face') and three unheard tracks - 'Funny Smile', 'Pussy […]
Surviving members of the Prodigy have released a statement urging their fans with mental health issues not to remain quiet about them, NME reports. "It has been a tough time for everyone over the last few weeks since Keef’s passing. If you are struggling with depression, addiction or the impact of suicide, please do not […]
"While you can find great singing in just about every genre that includes the human voice, there's something about straightforward pop that sometimes feels more like a singers' genre than its cousins" - PopMatters says in it's review of Norwegian singer Sigrid's debut 'Sucker Punch' (listen at YouTube). Just across the border there's Swedish singer, […]
Former Woodstock 50 backers Dentsu Inc. pulled financial support from the festival back last month, and founder Michael Lang now alleges that the former investors “illegally swept approximately $17 million from the festival bank account.” Also, he alleges the Japanese company blocked ticket sales, advised talent to back out of lineup for potential slots in […]
People with depression listen to sad music because it makes them feel better, according to a study at the University of South Florida. Scientists asked 76 female undergrads (half of them diagnosed with depression) to listen to various happy and sad clips and found that participants with depression indicated they would rather listen to sad […]
Scottish singer-songwriter Lewis Capaldi releases his debut album 'Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent' on 17 May, with "power ballads about breakups, heartache and insecurity". On social media he's quite a funny guy, but on records quite sad: "When you're happy you're thinking about puppies and spaghetti... just enjoying being happy", he told BBC, and […]
Here's how Guardian describes them in a few lines: Amyl and the Sniffers are like a breath of filthy fresh air... Their sound sucks meat from punk and glam’s bones, and throws in basslines from 70s pub-rock... [They] promise swearing, sweat and the short, sharp shock of rock at its gutsiest. Amyl and the Sniffers’ […]
Tool performed 'Descending' and 'Invincible' - 9 and 6 minutes long - over the weekend at Florida festival Welcome to Rockville. The songs are most probably taken from Tool’s long-awaited new album, first since 2006’s '10,000 Days'. Band's frontman Maynard James Keenan previously said the as-yet-untitled album should arrive "between mid May and Mid July". […]
Guardian has another "bigger picture" article on social implications of a pop-culture trend. They write about estimated 1 million youngsters from South Korea and Japan competing in auditions for talent agencies, which will take on a select few as “trainees”. It's not just showing up at auditions, they train beforehand, paying thousands of dollars worth […]
“I’ve spent about seven years not writing anything for the band. I couldn’t write anything for the band. And then about a month or so ago, I wrote almost an album’s worth of material for the band... I had almost two weeks of those daily visitations and it was so nice. It makes you so […]
Isol-Aid started in March as a one-off festival, but the success of the first one gave organizers strength to continue. It has since grown into a weekly event, with an average of four artists performing, Guardian reports. It has since hosted 881 artists, resulted in record deals, evolved to a paid gig (to compensate the artists), with around 35,000 viewers on average tuning in each week. Bigger artists like Julia Jacklin, Stella Donnelly, and Middle Kids appear alongside lesser-known, like health-care workers doing music as a hobby. It's streamed on TikTok, where performers stream on their own account and then direct audiences to the next act, as well as on Isol-Aid.com. On Sunday, March 21, line-up consists of Jaguar Jonze, Hockey Dad, Julia Stone, and Isaiah Firebrace.
Indonesian drummer Deden Noy has built his own kit from paint cans, small barrels, packing tape, and metal trays covering Dream Theater, Avenged Sevenfold, System of a Down, Rush, and other bands for his YouTube channel. Noy got nearly a million views for his cover of Dream Theater’s 'Metropolis Pt. 1', with attracted the attention of Mike Portnoy who promised the drummer a new kit & cymbals from Tama and Sabian. Loudwire reports.
"We’ve sold six million albums for Epic Records, and they’ve made $50 million... We haven’t made any money off of record sales, album sales. It’s all gone to the major labels" - Chevelle's frontman Pete Loeffler said, adding "we just don’t make money the way the deals are structured". He explained that "contracts are a bitch, and we’ve signed some raw ones. And we need to start trying to make some money off of our catalog, which is 10 albums deep, plus all the side stuff", according to Blabbermouth. Chevelle have a new album 'Niratias' ('Nothing Is Real And This Is A Simulation') out.
Kanye West's sneaker and apparel business Yeezy, a venture with Adidas AG and Gap Inc., has been valued at $3.2 billion to $4.7 billion by UBS Group AG, according to Bloomberg. An unaudited balance sheet of West finances includes also $122 million in cash and stock and more than $1.7 billion in other assets, including a significant investment in Skims, Kim Kardashian’s underwear label. West’s entire music catalog is worth $110.5 million. In 2015, West said he was $16 million in debt. A year later he said he owed $53 million. By 2018, however, he was earning more than $100 million in royalties through its Adidas relationship. Forbes made its calculations of West's wealth, and those are significantly lower. The Yeezy company that West is the sole owner of is currently worth $1.5 billion by Forbes' estimates, not $3.2 to $4.7 billion like the Bloomberg report implies. The Bloomberg report also mentioned an additional $1.7 billion in personal assets - Forbes thinks that number is closer to $160 million. Forbes estimates his total net worth to about $1.8 billion.
Carlos Niño is joined by Jamael Dean and Shabaka Hutchings on the meditative minimal jazz 'Please, Wake Up'; Mick Jenkins shares 'Designer Frames' produced by Kaytranada in his signature dance-rap style; Writhing Squares' 'Chart for the Solution' is an 11-minute one-chord jam; DeVotchKa shares nice orchestral movie-music 'Lose You in the Crowd' from 'The True Adventures of Wolfboy'; Helado Negro covers Deerhunter’s 'Futurism' for a new compilation featuring artists from the 4AD's roster covering songs from throughout the label’s 40-year archive.
Is it safe to destroy our CD collection? - Guardian's Matt Charlton asks and answers: "With a monthly streaming subscription, or even the likes of iTunes, we are paying for a licence to listen to the music, not ownership of the music itself. What if, as happened last month with a number of K-pop songs on Spotify, the music we hold dear and listen to every day suddenly disappears?.. Of course, there are sentimental reasons for holding on to our CDs, too. For some of us, they are a physical manifestation of youth; a disc-by-disc autobiography... Amid our stressful lives and the fresh starts we’re about to embark upon, our CDs are scratched little time capsules worth holding on to".
Obviously, members of Sleigh Bells, Powerman 5000, Glassjaw, The Black Dahlia Murder, and Gwarsenio Hall were young in the 1990s, so in their latest edition of Two Minutes to Late Night they made a medley of a bunch of classic '90s club jams, including Alice DJ’s 'Better Off Alone', DJ Sammy’s 'Heaven', Vengaboys’ 'We Like To Party!', Corona’s 'The Rhythm Of The Night', Haddaway’s 'What Is Love (Baby Don’t Hurt Me)', and more.
This year's editions of UK festivals Glastonbury and Download are cancelled, since they were to happen early in the summer. Others, who were scheduled for late summer, or have been rescheduled, are planning to go ahead, "confident that fans will be allowed to mosh, pogo and stage-dive with the risk of injury, rather than disease, their main concern", as BBC puts it. Dozens of fests should go ahead, among them All Points East (headlined by Jamie xx, Kano, Slowthai, Arlo Parks, Bicep), Hyde Park (Pearl Jam, Duran Duran, Pixies), Camp (Fatboy Slim, Kelis), Creamfields (Deadmau5, Carl Cox, Eric Prydz, Tiesto, Bicep), Isle Of Wight, Latitude (Lewis Capaldi, Bastille, Snow Patrol), Reading & Leeds (Stormzy, Post Malone, Liam Gallagher, Queens Of The Stone Age), Y Not, Womad...
Covering the build-up to, and the aftermath of, the pop star’s accidental overdose in the summer of 2018, four-part series 'Demi Lovato: Dancing With the Devil' is harrowing and unflinchingly honest - Guardian writes in review on the new docu about the American pop-star. The G points out how "its central theme – that one individual shouldn’t bear the burden of other people’s expectations – is important". Lovato revealed deeply private information in the documentary, about how she was raped as a teenager, and sexually assaulted by her dealer. The docu airs on YouTube from 23 March.
“For artists, the protest song is an increasingly difficult proposition" - film director and musician Don Letts writes in Radio Times (via Guardian), adding - "in a world so woke you can’t make a joke, trying to navigate the minefield of fake news, conspiracy theories and information overload is made even trickier by the fear of being accused of cultural appropriation”. He also writes that he believes musicians are being “by default part of the business. In my day, getting into music felt like a rebellious, anti-establishment thing. Today, many see it as a way of becoming part of the establishment”.
