Live Nation announced a run of new $20 “all in” ticket prices for nearly 1,000 outdoor amphitheater shows in the US taking place this year, Music Business Worldwide reports. Artists who will be playing shows under the $20 ticket offer include the Jonas Brothers, Kings Of Leon, Zac Brown Band, Trippie Redd, Maroon 5, Alanis Morissette, Lil Baby, KISS, and Korn. The $20 tickets will be available to the general public starting next Wednesday, July 28th at 12pm ET/9am PT on LiveNation.com for a limited time only.

The estate-approved Whitney Houston hologram concert will arrive this October for a lengthy residency at Harrah’s Las Vegas. Over five years in the works, 'An Evening With Whitney: The Whitney Houston Hologram Concert' made its debut in 2020 London, featuring holograms of Houston from all stages of her career alongside in-the-flesh backup singers, dancers, and musicians. Base Hologram Productions CEO Marty Tudor told Rolling Stone of their efforts to make a “tasteful” homage to the late singer: “It’s a complicated mix of disciplines if you will. I could’ve made Whitney fly around stage if I wanted to, but she didn’t. One of the things that’s really critical is we want to be authentic. To me, it’s creepy and eerie if you make the artist do something they never would’ve done. But if you are authentic and live within the rules of who they were, this is a celebration of her legacy”.

New Spotify Original podcast 'Deathbed Confessions', covering some of the most notorious dying words throughout pop culture history, has debuted this week. The first episode covers the unsolved 1922 murder of silent film director William Desmond Taylor, who was found dead from a gunshot wound in his apartment in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles. Future episodes will cover Frank Thorogood, the building contractor who claimed he murdered the Rolling Stones’ guitarist Brian Jones, who was thought to have drowned accidentally in a swimming pool; and the conspiracy surrounding CIA Agent E. Howard Hunt, who claimed, while sick, that he and several others had played a role in JFK’s assassination.

Current rock star Bruce Springsteen and former American president Barack Obama are publishing a book titled 'Renegades: Born in the USA' (is that title ironical?!?). Based on their podcast conversations, it comes in an oversized, illustrated format, with handwritten Springsteen lyrics, annotated Obama speeches, and other archival material, AP reports. It's out October 26.Aud

Facing each other in a garage over a small plastic table, rappers Uriya & SAZ hurl ethnic insults and clichés at each other, tearing away the veneer of civility overlaying the seething resentments between the Jewish state and its Palestinian minority in a rap video that has gone viral in Israel. Sincere, passionate, touching! The New York Times reports, via Washington Mail.

"Murder ballads are part of Appalachian, hillbilly, and country music traditions. But they also exist in blues, spirituals, and slave song traditions" - the author of excellent podcast Songs in the Key of Death writes in the Esquire on the origins of murder ballads. Courtney E. Smith argues there's segregation beneath: "Ice-T still faces derision for writing a song from the point of view of someone who is fed up with abuse from the police ['Copkiller'] but Johnny Cash is a hero for singing the lyric 'I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die'".

Billboard staff picked the 50 greatest producers of this century: the most innovative, impactful and important knob-twiddlers since 2000. The top 5 are:

5. Mike Will Made-It because he loves twisting the familiar into something far weirder and more rewarding

4. The-Dream & Tricky Stewart thanks to their zooming keys, gentle-but-insistent percussion, expansive soundscapes and the era's most lethal toplines.

3. Timbaland - fourth-dimension funk, with rattling drums, squelching bass, unrecognizable and disembodied vocal hooks

2. Pharrell Williams / The Neptunes - Liquid guitars, clanging percussion, and the most intoxicating synth tones you've ever heard

1. Max Martin -  the hooks we crave, the choruses we want to belt out, from the stars that have defined the mainstream over the past two decades

"In the last 15 years, everything has changed a lot. I don’t feel any hostility; in fact, just the opposite. There is a lot of interest and support: from the public, from orchestras, from managers, and from the critics" - conductor Oksana Lyniv says in the New York Times interview about female conductors. This Sunday, Lyniv will conduct a production at The Bayreuth Festival in Germany, becoming the first woman to conduct a production in the festival’s 145-year history.

The Mercury Prize 2021 shortlist:

Arlo Parks – 'Collapsed in Sunbeams'
Berwyn – 'Demotape/Vega'
Black Country, New Road – 'For the First Time'
Celeste – 'Not Your Muse'
Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders and the London Symphony Orchestra – 'Promises'
Ghetts – 'Conflict of Interest'
Hannah Peel – 'Fir Wave'
Laura Mvula – 'Pink Noise'
Mogwai – 'As the Love Continues'
Nubya Garcia – 'Source'
Sault – 'Untitled (Rise)'
Wolf Alice – 'Blue Weekend'

Cultural critic Steven Hyden discusses the no-band-t-shirt-to-that-band-gig rule in his latest blog post. He first makes a distinction - it's quite ubiquitous on a metal show, but a no-no at an indie-rock show. His point: "When you go to show, nobody cares about what you are wearing. If there is one quality that all humans share, it’s that we’re all too wrapped up in ourselves to think about the shirts on the backs of strangers".

Eric Clapton said he will not perform at any venues that require attendees to prove that they’ve been vaccinated against Covid-19, NPR reports. Clapton issued his statement in response to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s announcement that vaccine passes would be required to enter nightclubs and venues. Clapton previously shared a message about his “disastrous” health experience after receiving the Covid-19 vaccine.

Songfinch is a music tech startup where fans can order personalized songs for $199. Users select the style of their song and share stories to shape the lyrics. Songfinch then matches users with an artist who writes and records the song for the user. Customers get a personal use license in perpetuity, but they can't monetize the song. Songfinch users can't choose specific artists and prices are fixed at $199. The platform has just had a $2 million seed round - investors included The Weeknd, XO Records CEO Sal Slaiby, and Atlantic Records CEO Craig Kallman. Trapital's Dan Runcie compares it to audio Cameo, and predicts where it might go from here.

“Expensive guitars don’t write better songs” - Finneas wrote on his Twitter, making a good point (albeit an obvious one). Later he also tweeted "you ever see someone walking with headphones on and you can just tell they are feeling SO fresh because of whatever they’re listening to?", and "no music on a dead planet". In a less metaphysical moment, he remembered the late Linkin Park singer - "4 years. RIP Chester Bennington. Sad forever about this".

"His endearing videos are part history lesson, part nerdy tech outlet, part philosophical soapbox" - Pitchfork writes lovingly presenting Hainbach, an old-machine enthusiast and music producer. "The project grew from his fascination with obsolete test equipment—everything from particle accelerator components to lunks of antique metal used in nuclear research to a dolphin-locating device once used by the U.S. Navy". When he collected plenty of those, he arranged them into towers, and recorded their sounds live, calling the album 'Landfill Totems'.

Featuring cameos by Henry Rollins and Vince Staples, the new advertisement for Converse directed by Tyler, the Creator is a funny little video. The clip centers on a meeting of “The Really Cool Converse Club”, which includes greasers, punks, pirates, and more, who convene to revoke membership from one of their own.

“What do they say? ​‘It takes 10 years to become an overnight success’” - Brighton raper Arrdee says to The Face about the fame he is experiencing right now. He has been rapping since the age of 12, but he blew up only this year, with his 'Cheeky Bars' freestyle. He's also on Tion Wayne x Russ Millions' song 'Body 2', also featuring 3x3E1 & ZT, Bugzy Malone, Fivio Foreign, Darkoo, and Buni. Arrdee's latest single 'Oliver Twist' needs to prove that he's “smiley, I’m fun and bubbly, and cheeky”.

Japanese composer Cornelius, real name Keigo Oyamada, who was working on the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony, quit Monday after coming under fire for bullying classmates during his childhood, AP reports. Reports of his past abuse of classmates, including those with disabilities, surfaced online recently and sparked a backlash on social media plus demands for Oyamada’s resignation. Finally, he apologized and quit. A segment of the music Oyamada composed for Friday’s opening ceremony will not be used, and the musician will be also removed from his planned role in the Paralympics opening event.

Billboard calculated the incomes of the five highest-paid musicians in the world in 2020. Queen are on the top with $48.7 million of total income, followed by Taylor Swift with $41.4 million, Billie Eilish with $32.8 million, BTS with $31.5 million, and finally Post Malone with $29.7 million.

At midnight on Sunday, at least a dozen venues in England celebrated "freedom day", the first night of clubbing since March 2020. The week started with a Monday morning full of clubbing, stuffed clubs, and scores of people queueing outside venues. At no point were clubbers asked to present proof that they had tested negative and vaccination passports were not required, Guardian reports.

Robby Steinhardt, a co-founder and former member of the progressive rock group Kansas, died Saturday at age 71, CJ Online report. Steinhardt shared lead singing duties with Steve Walsh while performing for 18 years with Kansas, while his classically influenced violin playing set Kansas apart from other rock bands.

In 1956, the US introduced the Jazz Ambassadors Tour, a showcase that sent American musicians overseas to parts of the world that were perceived to be under threat of Soviet influence. It was believed that jazz performers who were spearheading the civil rights movement would help generate a positive image of the US to newly independent nations. One of the countries the US focused on was Pakistan, so Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie and Dave Brubeck were among the performers at state-funded gigs during the 1950s and 60s. These concerts wove jazz into Pakistan’s musical fabric and through its traditional instruments, resulting in sounds that remain relatively unheralded yet are still flourishing today, with bands like Jaubi, or previously Badal Roy, Tafo Brothers and Zohaib Hassan Khan, as Guardian points out.

"Electric and acoustic guitar sounds have spread onto more hip-hop records, through an assortment of production techniques, including an increased employment of loops and loop makers, who create short melodies for producers to build beats around" - Vice points out the new trend in hip-hop production. "On the Polo G’s latest album, 'Hall of Fame', nearly half of the 20 songs include a guitar sound in the beat. On H.E.R.'s 'Find a Way' the R&B artist H.E.R. uses a crystalline electric guitar as a canvas for her voice. On J. Cole's 'Pride is the Devil', a simple and somber guitar riff carries the beat"...

The electronic music festival Verknipt in the Netherlands has been linked to more than 1,000 new cases of the novel coronavirus, although the organizers have followed all the health guidelines. CNBC reports. In early July Verknipt hosted about 20,000 attendees in Utrecht. Now, 1,050 of those people and counting have tested positive. This is especially discouraging because the electronic music event followed many expert guidelines - the festival was held outdoors, where infections are generally much lower; concert-goers also needed to show a QR code confirming that they were either fully vaccinated, had recently recovered from a COVID-19 infection, or had tested negative within the last 40 hours. That 40 hours window is seen now as the main possible reason for the infection spike.

Olivia Rodrigo’s 'Sour' earned 83,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending July 16, notching the fourth total week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. 'Sour' is the first debut album by a woman to spend four weeks at No. 1 since Susan Boyle’s 'I Dreamed a Dream' spent six weeks in 2009/2010, Billboard reports. Speaking of records, Inhaler’s 'It Won’t Always Be Like This' opens at the top of the Official U.K. Albums Chart, with 18,000 chart sales, and the fastest-selling debut album on vinyl of any band this century.

Music writer Ted Gioia read about the idea by a Norwegian company to build a doomsday vault to preserve the world’s most important music recordings, stored on an especially durable optical film. Gioia has a related business idea: "I suspect there’s demand for digital platforms that make a similar promise. The business I’m envisioning would use blockchain technology to ensure that a song could never be deleted from the Internet".

"The marvel of Billy, of course, is that in an era when being trans was apt to get one killed, he chose to 'hide in plain sight', concealing that he was assigned female at birth while embracing a profession that made him the constant center of attention" - the Daily Beast writes about the doc 'No Ordinary Man' which examines the life of Billy Tipton, a talented jazz artist in the 1940s and 1950s who, upon his death, was revealed to have been assigned female at birth. "That trailblazing courage is clearly an inspiration for everyone featured in Chin-Yee and Joynt’s film, who speak about his plight—and the bravery he exhibited in being himself, no matter the obstacles—with palpable reverence".

"It’s delightful that there are still questions Siri and Alexa can’t answer, and that people argue fervently about rock lyrics from more than 45 years ago" - LA Times writes in an article about the Internet argument over a Bruce Springsteen lyric. The song is 'Thunder Road', it begins 'Born to Run', the 1975 album that made Springsteen a star, and it's the opening lyrics - “The screen door slams, Mary’s dress waves”, or is it "sways"? The problem is, Springsteen isn't sure himself. In the original album gatefold design of 'Born to Run', the lyrics are printed “Mary’s dress waves”, but on page 220 of his best-selling 'Born to Run' memoir, Springsteen says “‘the screen door slams, Mary’s dress sways’ — that’s a good opening line”. Or maybe Boss just doesn't want the story to end, as he admits in his Broadway show: “I come from a boardwalk town where everything is tinged with just a bit of fraud. So am I. I’ve never seen the inside of a factory, and yet, it’s all I’ve ever written about… I made it all up”. Springsteen's longtime manager Jon Landau settled the matter in the New Yorker - “The word is ‘sways. That’s the way he wrote it in his original notebooks, that’s the way he sang it on 'Born to Run', in 1975, that’s the way he has always sung it at thousands of shows, and that’s the way he sings it right now on Broadway. Any typos in official Bruce material will be corrected”.

Irish group Song Collectors Collective is traveling through Ireland, Scotland and England recording the elderly singing songs that exist only as oral tradition. "Those people are sailors, tinsmiths, tinkers, but most are from the reclusive and sometimes difficult-to-approach traveler communities. Their strong culture and tight-knit families make them living goldmines of folklore and Irelesong", Good News Network reports.

"Posing the question 'What makes an image iconic?' the [‘Icon: Music Through the Lens’] series seeks answers through the studio portraits, record sleeves, music magazines, live shows, exhibitions, social media, coffee table books and the fine art world" - PBS' press release reads about the new 6-part series.

Earlier this week, right-wing congressman Matt Gaetz arrived at the #FreeBritney rally demanding "freedom and liberty" for the singer, constrained "through guardianship and conservatorship”, Rolling Stone points out. "The #FreeBritney movement has also more broadly served as a talking point within the mainstream GOP. National Republican Congressional Committee has been using Spears’ case as part of its text message fundraising efforts, referring to her in texts to donors as 'a victim of toxic gov’t overreach & censorship'; Gaetz and other Republicans, including QAnon supporter Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, have also issued a formal invite to Spears to testify before Congress about her conservatorship struggles. And within far-right circles on the internet, the #FreeBritney case has been a flashpoint of discussion, in large part due to the issues it raises of sovereignty and bodily autonomy. A number of anti-vaccine accounts on Instagram have also shared content comparing Spears’s tearful testimony that she was forced by her father and handlers to have an IUD, to being forced to take a COVID vaccine".