Rihanna has officially entered the billionaire’s club, with Forbes estimating her dollar worth at $1.7 billion. The pop star and business mogul - founder of fashion house Fenty as well as makeup line Fenty Beauty - is now the wealthiest female musician in the world and the second-wealthiest female entertainer in the world after Oprah Winfrey.

Charlie Watts will miss The Rolling Stones’ upcoming US tour after undergoing an unspecified medical procedure, Rolling Stone reports. In his own statement, Watts joked that “for once, my timing has been a little off". Watts' friend and longtime Rolling Stones associate Steve Jordan, who is a member of Keith Richards’ side project X-Pensive Winos, will be filling in on drums. Watts, who recently turned 80, hasn’t missed a Rolling Stones gig since January 1963.

Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot said she doesn’t fear a surge of coronavirus cases tied to Lollapalooza, in part because her public health commissioner “went incognito” to the music festival without valid proof of vaccination and was turned away, Chicago Sun-Times reports. Mayor also said she is “confident that thousands of people — mostly young people, which is our toughest demographic — got vaccinated simply because they wanted to go to Lollapalooza", adding that "every single day, they turned hundreds of people away — either who didn’t have the right paperwork or had an expired test that wasn’t taken within 72 hours. That tells me there is a rigor around the protocols that they were using to screen people”. Lollapalooza is the largest festival of its kind in the world this year.

The U.K.’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has announced that it has negotiated short-term tours for UK musicians and performers without visas and work permits in 19 EU member states, NME reports. These countries are: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden. Trade bodies and unions representing British musicians say this changes nothing, insist "short term" is undefined, adding that there is still the issue of equipment transportation, Guardian reports. Formal approaches via officials and DCMS Ministers have been made to Spain, Croatia, Greece, Portugal, Bulgaria, Romania, Malta and Cyprus. The U.K. allows touring performers and support staff to come to the U.K. for up to three months without a visa.

"Paul Johnson’s signature meld of disco loops, overdriven kicks and unfiltered sleaze was nothing short of alchemy. Even when chopping up the vocals of Leroy Burgess or Roy Ayers, Johnson’s records simmered with raucous charisma, a gift that made him stand out amongst greats of the ’90s house scene" - DJ Mag writes about Paul Johnson, who died aged 50 "leaving behind a chasm in house music".

"Grit and earthiness grounds this album in its spacious atmospheres and crushingly sludgy riffs" - Metal Injection reviews new album 'Celestial Blues', a "kaleidoscopic take on doom gaze and ritualistic folk" by King Woman. Pitchfork gives the album 7.5, describing it as an "exploration of spiritual healing and survival that’s been shellacked in a veneer of grungy malaise, heavy post-rock, and blissed-out darkness". The band is fronted by the Iranian-born Kris Esfandiari who "presents herself as one of the chief proponents of metal informed by spiritual inquiry, yearning for emancipation from the habituated self, and the complex desire that exceeds convention. She’s a modern-day gnostic", Beats Per Minute argues.

Sarah Brand, a student of sociology at Oxford University, has released a song 'Red Dress', which she said was a "cinematic, holistic portrayal of judgement". The A.V. club said the video invited a "kind of car wreck curiosity", while Newsweek debated whether it was part of a "grand social experiment". BBC explores what's behind the out-of-tune song.

The Offspring drummer Pete Parada posted on his social media that he’s been ousted from the group because he won’t agree to get the COVID vaccine. He's been told he is not welcome on the upcoming tour, as well as not to show up at the studio either. Parada claims to have a legitimate medical reason for not getting the jab (the Guillain-Barré syndrome), Rolling Stone reports. In similar, COVID-related news, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that proof of vaccination will be required to participate in indoor activities, including live performances and entertainment, a first-of-its-kind program in the U.S., Billboard reports. Also, Japanese Breakfast announced that all upcoming shows for the tour will be masked and require either proof of vaccination or a negative PCR within 48 hours preceding the show.

Sony Music generated $1.39 billion from recorded music in the second quarter of 2021, a 48.2% year-on-year rise, or a massive USD $451 million versus the same period in 2020. Sony generated $996.4 million from streaming alone – an all-time high, and brushing the magic billion dollar mark for the first time, Music Business Worldwide reports. This recorded music streaming revenue haul was up by a whopping 50.2% year-on-year, versus the $663.4 million the firm posted in calendar Q2 2020. Sony's biggest revenue-generating projects were by Harry Styles, Lil Nas X, and Polo G.

Last year, Lil Baby wrote 'The Bigger Picture' in response to the police killing of George Floyd. In May, he joined the Floyd family at the White House, alongside attorney Ben Crump, to support passing the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. In his hometown of Atlanta, he bought out an entire Foot Locker store and gave away sneakers in his old neighborhood, later downplaying his efforts on Instagram. "My life feels like a responsibility” Lil Baby says to Billboard - “I’m not even trying to be no role model, honestly. [But] now that I know that I am, I try to carry myself differently, because I got people watching. I don’t even be doing what I really want to do. I do what I gotta do now”.

EU member states are about to adopt legislation implementing the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, which includes Article 17 – a section devoted to increasing the obligations of user-generated content platforms and other online service providers with respect to copyrighted content uploaded by their users, MBW announces and explains. To avoid liability, platforms have to make "best efforts" to either license copyrighted videos and songs in their users’ uploads, or take down infringing content and make sure that the song, video, or other creative work is not infringed upon again.

"If you are going to be reactionary about anything in music... let it be the song. There is something thrilling about a collective that exalts the song over the band, the genre, the album... If nothing else, the focus on the song is a cure for musical boredom, and isn’t boredom the most reactionary force of all?" - The Quietus writes presenting Chaos Rising. The band is a loose-knit collective of musicians, all female, playing metal, releasing a new original song and video every month. The band members come from France, Argentina, Iran, Switzerland, North America, Russia, and Australia.

A great new video by the music theorist about the myth of the Medieval tritone being banned by the Catholic church. Adam Neely explains the tritone, how the myth was born, and why it is so damn persistent.

It's obvious, but still, Global News' Alan Cross manages to create one more drop of sadness with his nostalgic blog post about the extinction of paper-tickets: "Collecting concert ticket stubs will soon be extinct, much like the notion of B-sides, liner notes, and album artwork. Instead, our memories will be preserved as selfies taken at our seats or video recordings of the gig that we never watch. Yes, there are T-shirts, programs, and an endless supply of tchotchkes at the merch tables, but they all cost money. A ticket stub came with its own memories built into the cost".

A very interesting interview in GQ with The Weeknd about his identity (does he feel more like Abel, or The Weeknd), drugs, alcohol, children, and making music: "I believe that when anybody is sad, they make better music. They make more emotional music, more honest music. Cathartic, therapeutic music. And I’ve definitely been a victim of wanting to be sad for that, because I’m very aware. I definitely put myself in situations where it’s psychologically self-harming. Because making great music is a drug. It’s an addiction and you want to always have that".

Vulture Craig Jenkins looks beyond DaBaby being dropped from Lollapalooza after some public homophobic comments: "The connectivity the internet allows made it so people who grew up siloed in their like-minded communities now have to hear from the people on the margins, and the people on the margins got smart and organized and are starting to creep into positions of power and greater visibility, and the blowback for this has been unsubtle and retrograde and base and disgusting. A lot of people want things to stay the way they used to be and seem unable to grasp that the way things were required marginalized people to suck it up and live as second-class citizens in a country clearly built for someone else. There’s no going back to sucking it up. Here’s the thing: This ends one of two ways. We all die hating each other, or we start acting like other people exist and are deserving of the same respect and consideration that we demand for ourselves".

An interesting, yet laid-back interview with the Liars' frontman Angus Andrew in The New Cue. About releasing albums: "When I first put out the first record, I really had no expectation that anyone would listen to it. I wasn't worried about that. And, obviously, now, I'm more conscious of that. And in the whole technical sense, it just seems like when you put out a record nowadays, the music is a portion of it or something. It's not the whole thing, it's weird. There's so many different platforms and different things to do. It's a little bit overwhelming, to be honest. I definitely have worked through the time in which it’s gone from where putting out a record lost a lot of meaning at some point when things started to get digital to there being an onus on artists to produce works that lived beyond the digital. I suppose that's what we're doing. Even though it's all still digital". Liars' new album 'The Apple Drop' is out this Friday.

Snoop Dogg and comedian Kevin Hart are providing some fun commentary from the 2021 Tokyo Olympics interviewing athletes, recapping events and doing play-by-play for sports they don’t understand. In a segment called “Cold Call” gave their insight into the equestrian event. “The horse crip-walking! You see that? That’s sick. This horse is off the chain! I gotta get this motherfucker in a video” - Snoop Dogg joyfully announced as a horse pranced during the event. He also asked “do the horses get medals when they win too?”. They do not!

Music Journalism Insider has given over this week's edition to film critic Aaron Gonsher, who suggested a few films about parties and partying. Among the chosen ones are 'The Hip-Hop Nucleus' - a documentary on the notorious mid-to-late ’90s hip-hop parties at the Tunnel, 'Crowd' - subtle capture of Giséle Vienne’s extraordinary dance performance, 'Talkin’ Headz - The Metalheadz Documentary' - a snapshot of the cultural moment/movement when jungle crested and drum & bass surged...

The Kid LAROI has become the first Australian rapper to reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with his 'F*ck Love' album, over a year after it was originally released, Billboard reports. 'F**k Love' surges from No. 26 to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart for its first week atop the list, following multiple reissues that added additional tracks to the project. The set earned 85,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending July 29. At 17 years old, he’s also the youngest artist to top the chart this decade.

"'Thirstier' packs in monster hook after monster hook, with dense layers of crashing drums and whirring synths and bells-and-whistles that push each song to the next level" - Stereogum argues in favor of their latest choice for the Album of the week. Pitchfork gives the album 7.8, because it's "anthemic and euphoric, loaded with hooks and joyous reflections on love and self-discovery".

The highpoint of Dave’s new album is a 9-minute epic ‘Heart Attack’ which in the second half has him rapping without a beat - powerful stuff; M.I.C shares a dark grime piece ‘K*rn’ featuring JME, Nammy Was and Jawnino; Badge Epoch share a funk-rock psychedelia ‘Fruit Cocktail In Heavy Syrup’; Ólafur Arnalds goes deeply melancholic on - ‘Saudade’ from the ‘When We Are Born’ soundtrack.

"It's maybe not as dramatic as an addiction story or a fallout or a premature death, all of the things that are in other music documentaries, a fallout and a reunion. The thing with them is to exist in the business for 50 years through changing times. It's like watching two people push a boulder uphill" - director Edgar Wright says in The New Cue interview about The Sparks Brothers. "It's one of the rare music documentaries about brothers in rock where the brothers don't fall out".

Warner Music Group‘s Chinese dance label Whet Records has signed a deal with Ha Jiang, in a first major label record deal with a virtual artist. "As with any form of fame, there are stars that cross over into music. ‘Virtual idols’ won’t be any different" - Jon Serbin, the CEO of Warner Music Greater China and Head of Whet Records tells in the MBW interview.

MTV as a music television exists no more, but music videos still complement songs, create mythologies, and cause chatter and controversy - Rolling Stone says introducing their selection of the 100 best music videos of all time. Starting with The Buggles' 'Video Killed the Radio Star' and finishing with Beyonce's 'Formation' "all of these picks are perfect examples of how pairing sound and vision created an entire artistic vocabulary, gave us a handful of miniature-movie masterpieces, and changed how we heard (and saw) music".

In the three months to the end of June 2021 (Q2), YouTube generated a whopping $7.002 billion from advertising alone – equivalent to approximately $77 million a day, or $3.2 million every hour, Music Business Worldwide reports. The rise is astonishing - YouTube’s Q2 2021 ad revenue was up by 83.7% on the equivalent figure from 2020. In the six months to the end of June this year, the platform generated $13.007 billion in ad revenues, almost double what YouTube generated in the equivalent six months of 2020 ($7.850 billion). These numbers don’t include subscription revenue on YouTube generated by those customers paying for YouTube Music and YouTube Premium each month. Looking back, the numbers impress even more - YouTube rode out 2020 having generated some $19.77 billion from ads in the year – actually up 30.5% on the equivalent annual figure from 2019.

MTV celebrates its 40th birthday this weekend, with Billboard and Stereogum looking back with a selection of the 40 best videos played on the very first day on the network. There were 116 videos played in the first 24 hours, with Stereogum and Billboard agreeing Talking Heads' 'Once in a Lifetime' and Blondie's 'Rapture' being the best.

ZZ Top's bassist of 50 years, Dusty Hill has died on Wednesday at the age of 72, on Thursday the remaining member Billy Gibbons announced that the tour they just began would resume Friday after a brief lull, with their guitar tech of three decades filling in. It's what Hill had wanted, Gibbons says in the Variety interview: "But knowing that we can take his wishes forward and give him all due respect… You know, he was adamant. He said, 'I’m going to go down and see what’s up. In the meantime', he said, 'the show must go on. Don’t forget it'. And he was pointing his finger and shaking it".

Spotify's Premium Subscriber base grew to 165 million in the second quarter of 2021, which was up 20% year-on-year. The company’s total global monthly active users grew 22% year-on-year to 365 million in Q2 2021. Spotify’s Premium subscriber growth translated into revenue of €2.056 billion in Q2. That's big numbers, there are some small numbers, on which everything depends really - the firm’s average monthly revenue per subscriber landed at €4.29 in Q2. Music Business Worldwide takes a closer look at the numbers.

Apart from their societal influence, K-pop septet is a major money-maker in their country. According to the Korea Culture And Tourism Institute, BTS is bringing an estimated 5 billion dollars to the South Korean economy each year. The group is fueling interests in all things Korean - tourism, language, films, television, fashion, and food. NPR discusses BTS' influence in the latest podcast.