Singer, songwriter and bassist Sting has sold his entire song catalog to Universal Music Publishing Group, MBW reports, adding an assessment by an expert industry source who believes the final acquisition fee reached north of $300 million. The catalog features the entirety of both Sting’s solo works, as well as those with The Police, including mega-hits like 'Roxanne', 'Every Breath You Take', 'Shape Of My Heart', 'If I Ever Lose My Faith In You', 'Fields Of Gold', 'Desert Rose', 'Message in a Bottle', 'Englishman in New York' and 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic'.

Matty Karas wrote a lovely short obituary to Betty Davis - "the 1970s funk queen who wrote for the Commodores and the Chambers Brothers, was married to Miles Davis just long enough to turn him on to psychedelic rock, released three albums of raw, unbridled, sexually and musically liberated soul so far ahead of their time that we might not be there yet, and then, having failed to find an audience for her music, walked away".

Adele won the top three prizes at the BRIT Awards on Tuesday - song of the year for her chart-topping single 'Easy on Me', album of the year for her comeback album '30', and artist of the year, a now genderless category in which rappers Little Simz and Dave, as well as singers Ed Sheeran and Sam Fender, were also nominated. Rock band Wolf Alice took best group, rapper Little Simz was named best new artist, Ed Sheeran was named songwriter of the year, while Dave was named best hip-hop/grime/rap act. Check out all the winners here.

Universal Music Group, Sony Music Group, and Warner Music Group generated $20.28 billion in annual revenues in 2021, which is the equivalent of turning over around $2.3 million every hour, MBW reports. Warner generated $5.58 billion across its global music publishing and recorded music divisions in calendar 2021, Sony generated $7.49 billion, whereas Universal generated $7.21 billion in just the first nine months of 2021 – not including Q4.

In the two music-related Oscar categories, these are the nominees: original song - 'Be Alive' from 'King Richard' by DIXSON and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, 'Dos Oruguitas' from 'Encanto' by Lin-Manuel Miranda, 'Down to Joy' from 'Belfast' by Van Morrison, 'No Time To Die' from the latest Bond movie of the same name, by Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell, 'Somehow You Do' from 'Four Good Days' by Diane Warren; the original score category - 'Don't Look Up' by Nicholas Britell, 'Dune' by Hans Zimmer, 'Encanto' by Germaine Franco, 'Parallel Mothers' by Alberto Iglesias, and 'The Power of the Dog' by Jonny Greenwood. Check out all the nominees here.

It was not too long ago that Nazi symbols, uniforms and names were casually invoked by musicians - Forward writes introducing its piece about casual Nazism in popular music, like Sex Pistols, Michael Jackson, Siouxsie Sioux and others.

Syl Johnson, Chicago soul and blues singer, has died aged 85, Pitchfork reports. His 1967 song 'Different Strokes' would go on to be sampled by Public Enemy ('Fight the Power'), Wu-Tang Clan ('Shame on a N---a') Eric B. & Rakim ('I Know You Got Soul'), Jay-Z and Kanye West ('The Joy'), De La Soul ('The Magic Number'), and countless others. WhoSampled cites over 300 songs that utilize portions of Johnson’s original, making it one of the most influential pieces of music in hip-hop.

Music theorist Adam Neely answers a few quick questions, among them the one about why the intro riff from 'Drive my Car' by The Beatles so rhythmically disorienting. Also, he looks for a way to use rubato effectively without making it seem like overkill, end explains coffee addiction among musicians.

"For years, ambient music has carried connotations of comfort, even wellness. New Age’s hipper, younger cousin, it’s considered the ideal soundtrack for spas, meditation, and guided trips" - Pitchfork introduces the new generation of ambient music. "Their take is darker, fuzzier, more psychedelic—and more disturbing. It’s also more unpredictable: Variously influenced by genres including industrial, dub techno, and IDM, it’s pocked with trap doors and secret passageways, and released on a network of DIY labels where even the most bucolic chill-out soundtrack might be followed by a harrowing blast of noise".

Music piracy declined consistently year-on-year from January 2017 - there was a 65% decrease in music-related piracy visits globally in 2021 compared to 2017. Then, last year, a change - there was a 2.18% increase in 2021 compared to 2020, and an 18.6% increase in Q4 2021 compared to Q4 2020. MBW looks for reasons. The No.1 online destination for music piracy is so called ‘stream-ripping’ websites, which allow users to rip and download audio from YouTube, and which accounted for 39.2% of all music piracy globally in 2021, up from 33.9% in 2020.

Eminem, Dolly Parton, Rage Against the Machine, Lionel Richie, Duran Duran, Carly Simon, A Tribe Called Quest, Kate Bush, Devo, Beck, Judas Priest, Eurythmics, Pat Benatar, Fela Kuti, MC5, New York Dolls, and Dionne Warwick are among the nominees for Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s 2022 class, Consequence reports.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young have pulled their respective solo catalogs as well as the music they made together from Spotify, Rolling Stone reports. “We support Neil and we agree with him that there is dangerous disinformation being aired on Spotify’s Joe Rogan podcast” a joint statement announcing that they plan to remove their music reads - “While we always value alternate points of view, knowingly spreading disinformation during this global pandemic has deadly consequences. Until real action is taken to show that a concern for humanity must be balanced with commerce, we don’t want our music — or the music we made together — to be on the same platform”.

MBW founder Tim Ingham discusses Neil Young’s decision to remove his catalog from Spotify in protest to what he deems Covid-19 misinformation appearing on the platform, on Talking Trends podcast: “Ultimately, people aren’t loyal to music streaming services, whatever playlists they’ve built – they’re loyal to the artists they love. Fans will spend hundreds of dollars they don’t have, sitting next to a drug addled lunatic on a long night-bus ride, walk hours in the pissing rain, just to attend a Neil Young concert. They’ll switch music streaming provider with a waggle of their thumb”.

Napkin Math and Trapital share an essay on Spotify: "Through a combination of convenience, partnerships with rights holders, and on-demand listening, it outlasted music piracy and beat legacy platforms like iTunes. It has built the business that saved the music industry. In October 2021, the company had 381 million monthly active users and was growing 19% year over year... Spotify wins because it has what matters most—attention. Spotify is the primary distribution tool for the biggest artists in the world. It has amplified attention for genres that were held back before the streaming era. The company is now on a mission to capture attention for all forms of audio. It is the attention king".

Music theorist Adam Neely shares a few pieces of advice on melodic phrasing in the 7/16 signature. Don't start every phrase on a downbeat, Neely suggests adding also to not be afraid to play laid back.

Warner Music Group, the world’s third largest music rights company, has announced a “legacy unrecouped advances program”, which will in effect scrap any unrecouped debt for artists who signed to the label before the year 2000. The program is set to be put into effect on July 1. MBW assesses this news as "huge".

Black Country, New Road frontman and co-founder Isaac Wood is leaving the band, sharing this as a reason: “Together we have been writing songs and then performing them, which at times has been an incredible doing, but more now everything happens that I am feeling not so great and it means from now I won’t be a member of the group anymore". Black Country, New Road are canceling their upcoming North American tour. The band, however, is not breaking up and is due to release their new album 'Ants From Up There' this Friday, February 4.

"Old songs now represent 70 percent of the U.S. music market... But the news gets worse: The new-music market is actually shrinking. All the growth in the market is coming from old songs... Those who make a living from new music—especially that endangered species known as the working musician—should look at these figures with fear and trembling" - music writer Ted Gioia writes about the status of new music in the Atlantic.

Guitar World examines "why guitar design is undergoing a renaissance in the wake of the pandemic, rounding up the best of 21st century lutherie and talking to some of the prime movers in guitar innovation about the new wave of guitar and what it means for players everywhere".

Nils Lofgren, a member of Neil Young & Crazy Horse and Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, has pulled his music from Spotify in protest of the platform’s spread of COVID disinformation, following Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. “Music is our planet’s sacred weapon, uniting and healing billions of souls every day. Pick up your sword and start swinging” - Lofgren wrote.

20-year-old piano player Joe Jenkins from Bristol has made a career by posting videos of himself playing piano in strange places on YouTube. He's taken his piano on a boat, outside Buckingham Palace and even in a hot-air balloon. He has gained 3.9 million subscribers playing songs from video games, films, memes and anime shows in unusual places, and he doesn't actually like playing in public! BBC reports on the interesting musician.

Billboard calculates losses Neil Yung and Joni Mitchell are going to have due to their withdrawal from Spotify: "At an estimated $2.8 million in streaming royalties last year, Young’s decision will forego about $1.2 million each year for him and his label, Warner Music/Reprise (Spotify accounted for about 43%). Of that, Young likely received half — $600,000. On top of that, Young earned $308,000 in publishing revenue from Spotify last year. Half of that — $154,000 — he would receive for the songwriter share with the other half going to Hipgnosis Songs. For Young, personally, the decision to pull his music from Spotify will cost him about $754,000 annually. In 2021, Mitchell’s recording catalog earned $373,000 from Spotify revenues. Like Young, Mitchell’s heritage contract likely earns her half of those revenues, adding up to about $186,500 in artist royalties she is foregoing. Her publishing, including her songwriting share, earned about $702,000 annually, of which about 11% — $79,000 — came from Spotify. Mitchell’s personal annual loss, based on her catalog’s performance for 2021, would be about $257,000 in total artist and publishing royalties", Billboard estimates.

LA Times traces Neil Young's fights against corporations throughout his career: "Over the decades, Young has made the news for indicting: MTV’s corporate ties; musical peers including Eric Clapton, Michael Jackson and the Rolling Stones for earning millions selling their music for commercials; record mogul David Geffen’s market-driven tastes; Monsanto and corporate control of family farms; the owner of Lionel trains for announcing its closure (Young ended up buying the company); the sonic inferiority of compact discs; and the ways in which tech companies have been willing to compromise on audio quality for bigger profit margins".

Joni Mitchell has announced on her blog that she intended to remove “all my music” from Spotify, MBW reports. Her reason are “irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives”. Mitchell added: “I stand in solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical communities on this issue”. Neil Young pulled his albums from Spotify due to his belief that the podcaster Joe Rogan has been spreading untruths about Covid vaccinations on the service.

"Dan Charnas’ book, 'Dilla Time', is a fascinating, immersive look at J Dilla’s impact both during his lifetime and beyond: the producer’s relationships and upbringing, his musical interventions, and the contentious dispute over who gets to control his posthumous legacy" - Pitchfork presents the new book about the late hip-hop producer. They also share an excerpt.

Two days before his death, Jimi Hendrix played with Eric Burdon, the former Animals frontman, who had recently teamed up with Latin-influenced rock band War. When the group began a residency at London jazz club Ronnie Scott’s, they were playing some of their first concerts together. Burdon invited Hendrix to sit in, and he showed up on the evening of Sept. 16, 1970 for the second set, and played moving, dramatic phrases all across the ensemble’s covers of blues and folk standards 'Mother Earth' and 'Tobacco Road', rousing the crowd to cheer and holler at the stage, Rolling Stone reports. Recording of guitarist jamming with War, remastered by filmmaker Oliver Murray and his team, features in upcoming doc chronicling London jazz club Ronnie Scott’s.

Guardian shares a moving story about members of Iranian-Norwegian band Confess Nikan Khosravi and Arash Ilkhani who got arrested in 2015, and spent 18 months of incarceration awaiting trial. Their crime was writing anti-establishment metal music, for which they were charged with blasphemy and propaganda against the state. After paying am $80,000 bail, they waited for the trial and, following a guilty verdict that sentenced them to six years in prison, they sought asylum in Norway. Now they have an album out 'Revenge at All Costs' where they're "making the statement that you cannot do this to a human".

Rihanna has donated $15 million to the Climate Justice Alliance, the Indigenous Environmental Network, the Movement for Black Lives, and 15 other organizations that work to restore climate justice in the United States and Rihanna’s home – the Caribbean. “Climate disasters, which are growing in frequency and intensity, do not impact all communities equally, with communities of color and island nations facing the brunt of climate change,” Rihanna says in a statement announcing her support.

Pitchfork likes the new documentary 'Meet Me in the Bathroom', based on Lizzy Goodman’s 2017 book chronicling the New York City’s early-millennium rock boom: "It’s a thrill seeing the Strokes wow stage-jumping British fans, revisiting the uncanny brilliance of TV on the Radio’s 'Ambulance', and witnessing LCD Soundsystem becoming a band in real time in an unhinged rendition of 'Daft Punk Is Playing at My House' where Murphy howls like Jim Morrison".

"The tension between dreams and reality, spirit and society, permeate every layer of Baghdadi’s impressionistic film. Personal narrative and genres like road and war documentaries interweave as Mayassi, Bechara, and their bandmates struggle to find their definition of success in a society that was not built to appreciate their work. But make no mistake: This is not another stereotypical work that casts Arab women as meek victims of repression. It’s a rallying cry (well, scream) for self-determination and rebellion" - The Daily Beast presents Rita Baghdadi’s new documentary 'Sirens', about the Middle East’s only all-female thrash metal band Slaves to Sirens.