You rarely see a face depicted in Michael Stipe's photo book, instead Stipe shoots hands, arms, the backs of heads. “I didn’t even realise that until the book came out”, he says, “It might be a built-in shyness, although bringing a camera up automatically alters the experience of being with another person. I might have […]

BBC has a lovely article about a busker Lazarus from Malawian city of Lilongwe who, by pure luck, made his first album. He was filmed with a phone by an English tourist in Lilongwe, and that recording made it's way to Johan Hugo, a Swedish-born, London-based musician who found Lazarus through an acquaintance. A makeshift […]

Madonna has released a music video for 'Medellín', the lead single for her new album 'Madame X', and with it comes her new eye-patched alter-ego (watch the video here). It all started with her moving to Lisbon: "My son wants to be a professional soccer player and he was never going to have the highest […]

"The simplest songs are often the best, the most relatable and reachable" - PopMatters says about 'Love Lies Bleeding', a song by Rose of the West, Wisconsin-based outfit that released its self-titled debut on 5 April (listen to it here). "The song challenges our basic notions about pop music while giving us hope for the […]

Laurel Canyon was a centre of counterculture activity in the mid-late 1960s and early 1970s - it was home to Frank Zappa, Jim Morrison, The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, The Eagles, Love, Neil Young, The Monkees - and it is the subject of new documentary 'Echo in the Canyon'. It features in-depth interviews with many of […]

Stereogum has some strong words about Kanye West's VIP Sunday Service shows that he has been doing since January, and which he has now brought to Coachella: "If he can convince people to buy $50 socks, maybe he can also convince enough to pay tithes to his church, where his cult of fans can become […]

Prince's estate is about to release a new 15 track album, featuring the original versions of the iconic hits that he wrote for other artists. The 'Originals' spans the period from 1981 and 1991 and includes his original takes on Sheila E.’s ‘The Glamorous Life’, the Bangles’ ‘Manic Monday’, Kenny Rogers’ ‘You’re My Love’, and […]

Lost live recordings of a Bob Marley gig have been found in a London hotel basement and are now heading to auction. The 10 analog tapes, which were found by chance after spending 40 years in a damp hotel cellar in a hotel in Little Venice, west London, suffered water damage and mold. However, they […]

'Defying Gravity' is a new memoir by Sex Pistols' friend Jordan Mooney, and it follows punk’s rapid rise and fall, as well as Jordan's own evolution from keen ballet student to the Boudicca of new wave to a veterinary nurse. But, in 1976, as she tells the Guardian - “Men were confused by me. They […]

Sony Pictures has won a bidding war for the movie rights to a new Broadway musical featuring Britney Spears' hit songs, Deadline reports. The stage version of 'Once Upon a One More Time' premiers in autumn, but the hype surrounding the show has already piqued the interests of movie executives. The fantasy musical imagines Cinderella, […]

Guardian visited California prison in Lancaster to speak to inmates about "healing and justice", and, in the wake of Nipsey Hussle's murder, about gang violence. Recently, rival gang members in LA and inside prisons appeared to have united around Hussle’s death and discussed whether the tragedy could lead to a long-term “ceasefire”, an end to […]

The indie bands of the Chinese capital have their own raw, distinctive sound, partly because they are so isolated from the rest of the rock'n'roll world - BBC reports from Beijing. Like Sydney's music scene in the 1980s, Beijing's creativity has been accentuated by being further away and less visited. The sound itself is raw, […]

"'Oh My God' is an album of seeking and discovering, of affirming and negating, loss and redemption, of musical and spiritual exploration, tribute and invention, and often of running to stand still in an act of extended meditation. This ambition is both exhilarating and enervating and not everything works, but it is impossible not to […]

There’s a subtle movement in songwriting now, expressed by Kacey Musgraves and Sharon van Etten and even Taylor Swift: writing from a place of happiness is more creative than mining the classic bad guy motif - Guardian says in their interview with liberal-country singer who won a Grammy for her latest album 'Golden Hour'. Musgraves […]

If an album isn't that good, there's no point in singling out text about it... unless the text itself is so good, and it makes a good point. That's the case with NME's review of Beyonce's live album 'Lemonade'. They think it isn't really much, but reading their review is a pleasure. Here's a snippet: […]

827,000 vinyl albums were sold in the U.S. in the week of Record Store Day, a record for the Record Store Day week and the third-largest sales week for vinyl albums since Nielsen Music started tracking sales in 1991. The only two larger weeks for vinyl album sales overall were logged during the Christmas season […]

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary added Eminem's definition of the word "stan", a derivative of his 2000 song, Pitchfork reports. In Webster it appears as both a noun - "an extremely or excessively enthusiastic and devoted fan”, and a verb - “to exhibit fandom to an extreme or excessive degree” or “to be an extremely devoted and […]

Shortparis is a Russian indie band with members from Siberia and St. Petersburg, and, according to the Quietus, they are following in Sergey Kuryokhin's legacy of provocative performance art - "ambitious, bombastic, incredibly pretentious, erotic, thrilling, impossible to pin down, vaguely deviant, fun to dance to and full of revolutionary potential". In tQ interview the […]

Filmmaker and photographer Jerry Schatzberg published a handsome new photography book, 'Dylan By Schatzberg', which inspired Stereogum to reach out to a number of photographers who have worked with Dylan over the years to ask for the stories behind the images, from the iconic blurry one, to the unusual one where Dylan is - a-smiling...

"Michael O’Neill has pretty much been a ‘those who know, know’ sorta figure, but word of mouth isn’t enough for an album this good" - the Quietus reviews debut album by Mancunian alt-rapper Michael O’Neill. "Sam Weaver, O’Neill himself and electroacoustic musician Danny Saul have combined for something that’ll likely need several listens before you […]

“Blink182″ is among the most commonly used passwords, and thus most easily guessed by hackers, according to the first study of that kind conducted by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre. The most popular password is “123456,” followed by “123456789”, “qwerty”, “password”, “111111” and “12345678”, and the “blink182″ is the most common music-based password, perhaps […]

It’s a sound somewhere between Haim and Belle And Sebastian - Sterogum says about new song by Barrie, a new band from New York, with their debut album 'Happy To Be Here' coming out on May. Listen to that one, and a couple of other songs by Barrie Lindsay and her band at Bandcamp.

Brazilian trach-metal band Sepultura have been barred from performing in Beirut next week - officials called the Brazilian metal band "devil worshippers" intent on "insulting Christianity", al Bawaba reports. Apart from that, authorities said the band had previously played in Israel and filmed a video clip showing their support of Israel (their well known music […]

Kanye West made his Sunday Service public at Coachella on Sunday morning, featuring gospel versions of cover songs and his own original tracks. West set up a merchandise booth to sell his special Sunday Service “church clothes” - hoodies and t-shirts were emblazoned with religious words and phrases, such as “Holy Spirit”, “Trust God”, and […]

Guardian picked out the book Moon Shine by American photographer Rachel Boillot, where this Nashville professor explores musical heritage in America’s Appalachian region. It's an "underexplored music scene informed by tradition and religion", coming from "the mountain roads between Signal Mountain and Cumberland Gap, tracing Tennessee’s Cumberland Trail corridor".

It’s now necessary that artists take more political stances in their music, Damon Albarn said on BBC 6 Music, adding that's it's especially important now when it comes to Brexit, a landmark decision that Albarn considers “so depressing”. In opposition to political music he see "selfie music" which he considers "not sustainable". An important thing […]

Korean boy-band BTS captures its third No. 1 album in less than 12 months on the Billboard 200 chart, as 'Map of the Soul: Persona', debuts atop the list with 230,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. It's their third No. 1 album on Billboard in 11 months - 'Love Yourself: Tear' was on […]

Prince’s unfinished memoir, 'The Beautiful Ones', will be released in October, three years after his death. It covers his life from his childhood to his final days and it will contain Prince’s unfinished manuscript alongside photos from his personal collection, scrapbooks and lyrics, including his original handwritten treatment for his 1984 hit 'Purple Rain'. When […]

" The Yawpers are a great American rock and roll band and 'Human Question' is one of this year's most accomplished releases" - PopMatters. Enough said? Listen to their song 'No Going Back' here.

Studiocanal is releasing 'Amazing Grace' – the concert film of Aretha Franklin’s gospel album of the same name – on 10 May. That follows Taylor Swift’s 'Reputation', which came out on New Year’s Day, and the December 2018 release of Bruce Springsteen’s 'Springsteen on Broadway'. In January Netflix announced Martin Scorsese would direct a documentary […]