One fan called the new Arctic Monkeys album 'Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino’ “perfection” on Twitter, describing it as a “calm, sexy, red wine with a cigarette kind of album”. Pointless‘ Richard Osman tweeted that ‘Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino’ was “a very pleasant surprise” and that it was “great that they’re not just treading […]
For black millennials in urban areas, he might be the definitive spokesperson. His success, and the wider success of grime, represents empowerment and equality in a way that established, mainstream – and yes, white – pop never can... Stormzy is far from an archetypal politician, but his influence is far-reaching. Ultimately, his support is testament […]
Andre 3000 has dropped a pair of songs in honor of mothers all over. The Mother's Day Anthems are called 'Me&My (To Bury Your Parents)' and 'Look Ma No Hands'. 'Me&My (To Bury Your Parents)' has a very Elton John-esque vibe, with the former OutKast rhymester singing a somber tune. 'Look Ma No Hands' is […]
Stereogum picks 5 best songs of the week, and 5 best videos of the week.
Britney Spears overcomes her painful shyness by cutting loose and putting on fierce performances onstage. "I'm very sensitive and sometimes I just want to run away because I'm a very shy person... I think it's healthy to be able to put on the persona of being confident," the singer said. "I think it's an escape because honestly […]
Thrash-metal titans Slayer kicked of their farewell tour at the Valley View Casino Center in San Diego, California, with support from Lamb Of God, Anthrax, Behemoth and Testament. "If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't be here. I wanted to thank you for everything," Tom Araya told San Diego moshpitting crowd (Loudwire). On the European leg of […]
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/may/13/the-last-poets-understand-what-black-is-review
Neil Young says he will be leaving Facebook to focus on expanding Neil Young Archives, where he has offered access to nearly all of his recorded music. Now in a new post - on Facebook - he says he will be leaving the platform, to focus on his “giant time machine cabinet” filled with “albums […]
Sigur Ros have launched a new project titled ‘Liminal’, a constantly evolving “endless” playlist which “will be built over linear time into a never-finished project of ceaseless invention.” The hour long ‘Liminal’ will reportedly be “added to frequently and endlessly", and will continue to be altered indefinitely beyond its release. "We play and sing sparsely […]
John Legend will be among six new voices coming to Google Assistant. The voices were created using WaveNet, which analyzes speech patterns and uses raw audio to generate speech that mimics typical humans delivery. Naturally, as they are apt to doing, Legend and his wife Chrissy Teigen had some fun with the announcement on Twitter. Upon hearing […]
Live Nation is flirting with the idea of employing facial recognition technology to speed up admission into concerts. The entertainment company would “acquire a face image and match it against a large database in half a second.” Ostensibly, people can just enter a venue without presenting a paper ticket or a digital ticket on a cellphone. Conversely, […]
Hip-hop icon and headphone impresario Dr. Dre has lost a trademark dispute with Pennsylvania gynecologist Dr. Draion M. Burch over Burch’s attempt to trademark the name Dr. Drai. The case has been ongoing since 2015, when Dre (real name Andre Young) claimed the similarity between the names Dr. Dre and Dr. Drai could cause “confusion.” […]
On April 30, two young Native American men wearing metal band shirts were pulled from a Colorado State University campus tour and questioned by the school’s police, following a call from a mother on the tour. The two teenagers—brothers Thomas Kanewakeron Gray, 19, and Lloyd Skanahwati Gray, 17—were late to the tour after driving seven […]
Guns N' Roses excluded their song One In A Million from their upcoming box-set reissue of their classic album 'Appetite For Destruction' that will feature five discs, seven LP’s, seven 7″, with 73 tracks long, 49 of them being previously unreleased songs, but not the 'One...’. That song drew heavy criticism for featuring the lyrics “Police […]
Fleet Foxes frontman Robin Pecknold is offering his co-writing services to fans. “I will help you finish your song, send it to /Robin-Pecknold on SoundCloud, one a week for foreseeable future,” he posted on Instagram. “This is so fun everyone is great and music is the best” he continued, “This is a much more engaging […]
"When a US blighted by racial unrest found itself needing to win a global propaganda war, a team of musical ambassadors was assembled. The result was anything but straightforward" - Guardian writes about “cultural presentations program – the effort to export American culture as a weapon in the fight against Soviet communism". A strange idea, a […]
Father John Misty has a new video 'Mr Tillman'. Kind of strange, in a Truman Show-ish kinda way, only slightly creepier. Nice, anyhow...
Swedish pop-gigants ABBA announced their reunion 35 years after their farewell single 'Thank You for the Music'. The original four - Agnetha Faeltskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Bjoern Ulvaeus and Anni-Frid Lyngstad - have recorded two new songs, first of which, 'I Still Have Faith in You' comes out in december, they announced on Instagram. They plan a […]
Tool have posted a video on their Facebook page that features new instrumental music. It comes ahead of brief six-city tour guitarist Adam Jones, drummer Danny Carey, and bass player Justin Chancellor will embark on. In February, frontman Maynard James Keenan said this about new album: “Words & Melodies 100% DONE on all but 1. Someday we’ll […]
"Being a queer black woman in America, someone who has been in relationships with both men and women – I consider myself to be a free-ass motherfucker" - that's how Janelle Monáe described herself in Rolling Stone interview. On her sexuality: "I read about pansexuality and was like, ‘Oh, these are things that I identify […]
Who's them: modern-rock quintet from Australia, stormy guitar anthems with spiritual-crisis, warrior-soul vocals, a singer with "a deep desire to learn shit, to find out what is absolute spirit, and how to navigate that through the lens of art". Rolling Stone
Pitchfork chose 10 "essential" tracks from Gost Zvuk, Russia's electronic label: "Most releases are connected by their lo-fi ambient haze (...) those who dare to explore their own identity in specific ways often produce the most interesting results".
One of the last year's great songs, that was sadly missed by some. Deserves to be Falseto's first post. Nice beards too...
NPR shares a somber music story that has happened in the dark shadow of politics, about kamancheh and setar player and vocalist Kayhan Kalhor. Born in Iran, he left at age 17 during the Iranian Revolution, walking more than 2,500 miles over the Balkans and to Rome, working on the road. After coming to Canada and finishing school he grew a global reputation as a part of Silkroad Ensemble, the artistic collective founded by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, he has written music for filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and has collaborated with a range of vaunted artists, from Kronos Quartet, Brooklyn Rider and the New York Philharmonic to Malian kora master Toumani Diabaté and Dutch jazz pianist Rembrandt Frerichs. After decades of living in Canada and the US, he lost the immigration battle with the US authorities and has returned to Iran.
Billboard made a list of the 50 biggest love songs of all time, based on their chart position. It's mostly ballads, and the earliest entry on the list is 1958's 'To Know Him Is to Love Him' by the Teddy Bears. It seems love isn't really much of a thing lately - the newest entry on this list is 2011's 'We Found Love' by Rihanna.
Taylor Swift has announced that she has re-recorded her second and most successful album 'Fearless', as part of a long-term plan to control her old songs outright, the New York Times reports. Her plan is to re-record, note-by-note, her entire Big Machine discography of six albums and to release it by herself. Swift is setting up and promoting 'Fearless (Taylor Version)' which comes out in April, as a new album, with six previously unreleased songs. She released the "Taylor" version of 'Love Story' as Valentine's gift for her fans.
The Heliocentrics co-founder and drummer-producer Malcolm Catto takes a walk with Bandcamp Daily through the making and creative focus of eight of the band's albums of jazz-funk-space psychedelia.
Retro-futuristic design, sound quality, and package design attract a new generation of music-lovers in Japan to cassette tapes, Vice reports about the interesting trend. Young people in their 20s and 30s are seeking music and culture from the 70s and 80s, paying over 158,700 Japanese yen ($1,517) for packs of 10, or 1,100 yen ($10.50) to 1,980 yen ($19) for a cassette. Maxell is the only remaining cassette tape maker in Japan, selling an annual average of 8 million cassettes nationally,
The US music industry revenue grew to $113 billion in 2018 and generated an additional 50 cents of revenue on every dollar earned for adjacent industries such as tourism, hospitality and marketing, which means it contributed a total of $170 billion to the economy, Billboard reports. Of the total sum, employee earnings were over $88 billion.
The keyboardist, composer, and bandleader Chick Corea - a contemporary jazz innovator - died on Feb. 9 at age 79 from a rare form of cancer, NPR reports. Corea, a virtuosic keyboardist who broadened the scope of jazz during a career spanning more than five decades, early in his career joined Miles Davis’ band and played a key role in helping the trumpeter make the transition to a more contemporary, plugged-in sound. Later, he formed his own groundbreaking electric band, Return to Forever, which played some of the most vibrant and dynamic music of the fusion era. An interesting quote by the late musician in the LA Times: “You can’t create in a vacuum and just fail to relate to people. At the same time, you cannot compromise your integrity. There has to be a middle road, where some sensible balance is made between, on the one hand, pure creation, and, on the other hand, the reality is that we live with, eating and survival and money and business.
LA judge has ordered Britney Spears' father and conservator Jamie Spears to share his control of her investment with financial company Bessemer Trust, which has now been appointed as a co-conservator, NBC reports. Britney Spears' legal team has asked the court to give a third party equal power to her father in managing the 39-year-old pop star's finances. After the court's ruling, Mr. Spears and Bessemer will work together on a budget and investment plan for the singer.
"Born of the internet on dark mode, hyperpop is all the sugary sweet appeal of mainstream pop but soaked in steroids – a garish reflection of the all-you-can-eat hunger of the material world... Too much is never enough" - The Forty-Five says in their introduction of an impossible task - ranking hyperpop's 45 best tracks. The list ends with Danny L Harle, starts with Sophie, with 100 Gecs, Charlie XCX, Slayyyter, and many more in between.
Spanish rapper Pablo Hasél has been ordered to report to prison to serve nine months and one day, for glorifying terrorism and insulting the Crown and state institutions in a series of tweets. After over 200 artists – including the filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar – signed a petition defending the rapper, the Spanish government announced that it is planning a reform to the criminal code that would eliminate prison terms for crimes involving freedom of expression, el Pais reports.
