The London soul singer Olivia Dean has announced as Amazon Music's Breakthrough artist for 2021, NME reports. As streaming platform's Breakthrough artist, Dean is now set to receive substantial support from Amazon Music including bespoke video and audio content, global marketing support, increased visibility across Amazon Music’s playlists and programming, and a high-profile Amazon Original track which is available only on the streaming platform.

"I love streaming. I stream a lot of music myself. The access we have to all kinds of music from all over the world is incredible. But I believe streaming must be fixed" - Nadine Shah tells the Guardian about the issue ahead of a publication of the UK parliamentary report about it. She and other artists, such as Nile Rodgers, Ed O’Brien of Radiohead, as well as songwriters for stars such as Kylie Minogue, have hit out at an “archaic” streaming model that allows major labels to maximise their revenue while some musicians struggle to make minimum wage.

Deaf actor and dancer Mervin Primeaux-O’Bryant and hearing dancer and choreographer Brandon Kazen-Maddox have started a new project producing sign language covers of 10 seminal musical works recorded by Black female artists. The two men sing with their hands, giving the song a special structure, as the New York Times notes: "A good A.S.L. performance prioritizes dynamics, phrasing and flow. The parameters of sign language — hand shape, movement, location, palm orientation and facial expression — can be combined with elements of visual vernacular, a body of codified gestures, allowing a skilled A.S.L. speaker to engage in the kind of sound painting that composers use to enrich a text".

Music journalist Greg Cochrane and Savages drummer Fay Milton have launched a new podcast Sounds Like a Plan which aims to shine a light on the music community’s fight against the climate crisis, NME reports. Launched this month, SLAP will feature an “inspiring climate advocate from the music community" like The 1975’s manager Jamie Oborne, Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien, and Melvin Benn, director of Festival Republic, which includes Reading + Leeds, Latitude...

Independent touches the sensitive issue of doxxing, searching for and publishing private or identifying information about someone on the internet, typically with malicious intent. Pop critic Ann Powers endured a series of verbal attacks after an essay around Lana Del Rey's album 'Norman F***ing Rockwell!'. Pitchfork writer Jillian Mapes published a mostly positive review of Taylor Swift’s 'Folklore' only to be faced with threats, which included pictures of her home. Ariana Grande fans went after culture critic Roslyn Talusan in 2019 with the singer refusing to tell them to back off. So, journalism stays one of the few professions where the professional is too often expected to do their job not professionally.

"I don’t have any right to complain.. When you look at the 8 billion people on the planet, a reasonably affluent caucasian cis-gendered male public figure musician is not necessarily the first person you think of as having valid criticisms about how they’re being treated” - Moby says in a Guardian interview. He is about to release a new album next month - orchestral reworkings of his old hits - as well as a new documentary about his life going from "out of control, utterly entitled, self-involved drink and drug addict" who missed his own mother's funeral because he got drunk, to the producer of philharmonic pieces.

"The premature loss of Earl 'DMX' Simmons labors as a frightening reminder that we, Black men, do not grow old, at least not nearly enough of us. Chadwick Boseman, Charlie Murphy, Bernie Mac, Nipsey Hussle, Prince, Heavy D, George Floyd, Gerald LeVert, Tupac Shakur, Notorious BIG, Prodigy (of Mobb Deep), J Dilla, Bernard Tyson, Fred the Godson. MF DOOM" - Consequence's Kahron Spearman writes on the sensitive issue, going into the wider societal and private contexts of the problem.

Kid Cudi quietly paid homage to Kurt Cobain with his wardrobe choices on the last Saturday Night Live. During his performance of 'Sad People', Cudi sported a long, floral dress, a nod to the dress Cobain wore during a 1993 photo shoot with UK music magazine The Face (watch the video below). Cudi also performed 'Tequila Shots' sporting a green cardigan reminiscent of Cobain’s famous MTV Unplugged sweater. Cudi has long-admired Cobain and last year got a photorealistic black and white tattoo of the grunge icon wearing a Daniel Johnston t-shirt. April 5 marked the 27th anniversary of the Nirvana frontman’s death.

Jon Batiste, Trent Reznor, and Atticus Ross won the Original score award at this year BAFTAs, for their work on the animated movie 'Soul', the Variety reports. Music movie 'Sound of Metal', about a metal drummer who goes deaf, has won the Editing and the Sound awards. 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom', about the influential blues singer Ma Rainey has won the Costume design award. Check out all the nominees - here.

An encouraging story in BetterHumans about going from a “screeching cat” to "opera singer" in singing skills. What it took to step over that gap, was the transformation of the physical component of singing, perfecting sight-reading, and getting better at auditioning.

A commanding presence on the mic... effortlessly balancing raw charisma with hit-making savvy, DMX had a major impact on the sound and direction of an era in hip-hop - Rolling Stone writes presenting their selection on 16 essential DMX songs. The iconic hip-hop artist has died at the age of 50 after suffering “catastrophic cardiac arrest”. Rolling Stone expands the story on DMX with revisited articles about his debut and his identity.

"'Dope Game Stupid' turns his life details and a never-ending stream of metaphors into some of the most engaging raps of the year so far" - Pitchfork writes reviewing the debut album by the Detroit rapper Bruiser Wolf, adding that "compact metaphors and similes are Wolf’s weapon of choice". Producer Raphy, on the other hand, "provides a batch of pristine loops that crackle with dust and melancholy".

"I didn't have a note. I didn't have an idea. I didn't have anything to write about. I didn't know what to write about. I just didn't see myself as someone that did that. The muscles in my brain had grown over the years to be something else. It was strange to learn how to do it" - singer-songwriter Stephen Fretwell tells in The New Cue interview how he tried to start making music again, after a decade-long break. "When I actually sat down, I noticed there were a few lines that sounded like they were telling a story that I didn't really know existed. And then as that started to come out of the lyrics, then my marriage fell apart" - he says, adding "It was so much work, I put so much work into it". That was the hard part - "the day that we recorded it in Dean Street Studios, we recorded it in one take all the way through". His new album 'Busy Guy' is out July 16.

“Above all I want all of this art, all of these songs, all my words to lead to there being a law that would protect women and children from domestic violence” - Russian singer Manizha, who is about to present her country at the Eurovision contest, says to the Guardian. She adds that the times they are indeed changing in Russia: "There was a time when you couldn’t go outside, there were skinheads, there were Ku Klux Klans. That’s already become far less. You have to agree. And it will continue layer by layer”.

Glass Animals wrote 'Heat Waves' in desperation at the end of a long and unproductive day in the recording studio in the summer of 2018, and it took almost 3 years for the song to break the waves, BBC reports. When they demoed it, frontman Dave Bayley saw there was somebody else in the studio, playing piano, totally in key, realizing it was - Johnny Depp. However, things didn't go smooth from there - the band had to delay their third album after drummer Joe Seaward suffered devastating injuries in a cycling accident. By the time he'd recuperated, the pandemic had derailed the band's comeback, and they were told to "write off" their album until they could tour again. The band decided to give it a chance. The video for the song, taped during the pandemic, was made with the help of Bayley's neighbors. Once released, last summer, the song didn't make it to the charts until it appeared on the multi-million-selling video game Fifa 21, only to reach the top of the charts this year.

New York art collective MSCHF which made "Satan Shoes" that purportedly contain a drop of human blood in the soles, has agreed to issue a voluntary recall as part of a legal settlement with Nike, the New York Times reports. The $1,018 trainers are modified Nike Air Max 97s, with only 666 pairs made and all but one, which Lil Nas X, who collaborated in the creation of the shoe, held so he could choose the recipient, have been shipped. MSCHF will offer full refunds to customers in order to remove the shoes from circulation. However, limited edition shoes can fetch higher prices among collectors so it is not clear how many - if any - customers will return the products.

While waiting for concerts to start all over again, Pitchfork had a number of artists, such as Bartees Cox Jr. of Bartees Strange, Jamila Woods, Natalie Mering of Weyes Blood, Buck Meek of Big Thief, Angel Bat Dawid, KeiyaA and others chose and describe their favorite independent music venues in the US. Cassandra Jenkins' favorite is Chicago's Hideout: "Part of the Hideout’s charm is that it just barely works. It’s pretty out of the way, and it’s small and disarmingly quirky, with a skinny shotgun space that feels familiar even if it’s your first time there. The stage is just deep enough to fit a band, and the bar is just wide enough for people to hang out. The size of the venue lends itself to acts that can play when they’re still figuring themselves out, and to nights that feel really special when the entire space is packed full of people".

Coleman Williams, aka IV, the son of Hank Williams III and the fourth generation of the Hank Williams’ line, shared his hard rock country debut 'Son of Sin', singed as IV and the Strange Band; Darkside - the duo of Nicolás Jaar and Dave Harrington - shared 'The Limit', a laid-back noisey dark-club tune; Assertion share an emo/post-hardcore song 'Deeper in the Shallow'.

"'Sound of Metal' is a painful, thoughtful, sombre film that telescopes a long story into just a few months" - Guardian's critic writes reviewing a movie about a metal band drummer going deaf. Bradshaw believes the movie is trying too much, with the main actor (and musician) Riz Ahmed giving a "typically fierce and focused performance" which "clarifies the drama and delivers the meaning of Ruben’s final epiphany. He gives the film energy and point". So, worth watching thanks to the musician, right Mr. Bradshaw?

10-year-old multi-instrumentalist Nandi Bushell had earned kudos from the Pixies for her loop version of the band’s classic song 'Where Is My Mind?'. YouTube sensation, who’s a skilled guitarist, bassist, and drummer, plays various guitar portions, and shifts over to drums, combining them all together into one cohesive version of the Pixies tune. The pre-teen also sings the song and listens to the finished song at the video's end, although she seems much more comfortable playing. Pixies tweeted "great work".

“I think anyone can do music, but not everyone believes they can do music. When you feel like you are emboldened or confident enough to do it, you just do it and don’t think about why” - says Nick Buxton, the drummer of the London post-punk band Dry Cleaning, in a Pitchfork interview. Florence Shaw, the vocalist in the band ("singer" would be really stretching it), adds that “the thing about Dry Cleaning is that it’s only space, so you don’t have to worry about someone mishearing it or there not being a gap for you”.

Sia has released a new music video 'Floating Through Space' which was made in collaboration with NASA to celebrate the upcoming Ingenuity test flight on Mars. The song is her latest collaboration with David Guetta, and the video arrives as NASA prepares to test Ingenuity helicopter, which would mark the first attempt at powered, controlled flight on another planet.

A great read in the Guardian - Canadian novelist remembers what Laurie Anderson's debut album was and what it had meant when it first came out. It's being reissued on vinyl this week. "As the 20th century has morphed into the 21st, as the consequences of the destruction of the natural world have become devastatingly clear, as analogue has been superseded by digital, as the possibilities for surveillance have increased a hundredfold, and as the ruthless hive mind of the Borg has been approximated through online media, Anderson’s anxious and unsettling probings have taken on an aura of the prophetic. Do you want to be a human being any more? Are you one now? What even is that? Or should you just allow yourself to be held in the long electronic petrochemical arms of your false mother?".

Sorry share their new EP, including the moody 'Don't Be Scared'; Cigar Cigarette teamed up with MOTHERMARY for an industrial cover of Cyndi Lauper's 'Time After Time'; Beachy Head, the new group featuring members of Slowdive, Casket Girls, and Flaming Lips, share slow and psychedelic 'All Gone'; Du Blonde shared anthemic single - 'All The Way'; Paris-based artist Poté presents his debut album with 'Young Lies', featuring Damon Albarn; Detroit rapper Bruiser Wolf shares a jazz/funky 'Syndicate' from his latest album; Mark Mallman shares sad happy song 'For Love I Will Let Love Go'; St. Lenox tackles religion from a not-so-particularly-religious point in 'Deliverance'.

“We wanted to try something completely different. After the first album we had written songs already trying to set in place a new direction but when COVID hit it gave us even more of an opportunity, individually, to further go down rabbit holes" - Black Midi’s singer and guitarist Geordie Greep tells the Quietus about band's new album 'Cavalcade' (out May 28). “The songs now have proper chord sequences and there's actually melody” - Greep adds. Also, there are a lot more instruments heard on the record too - violin, cello, saxophone, piano, bouzoukis, a late 19th Century zither called a Marxophone, flute, lap steel, synths, and even a wok that the band started using a violin bow on. Still, it's the same mission statement: "to make really theatrical, cinematic, expansive albums”.

British label behind the xx, FKA twigs, Arlo Parks, Sampha, and many more, has changed its name from Young Turks to just Young, as Uproxx reports. Founder Caius Pawson explained that, when he named the label after a Rod Stewart song in 2005, he had been “unaware of the deeper history of the term.… and that the Young Turks were a group who carried out the Armenian Genocide”. The label will also donate an undisclosed sum to the Armenian Institute in London.

Ja Rule has teamed up with photographer Trevor DeHaas to sell the infamous cheese sandwich tweet from the ill-fated Fyre Festival as an NFT (non-fungible token), for an estimated price of $80,000. Tickets for the luxurious festival in the Bahamas ranged from between $4,000 to $12,000, however, the audiences that reached the island only got - the meagre snack. The Flipkick listing describes the tweet as a “Meme. Cultural touchstone. Cheese sandwich... The most iconic image from 2017’s most famous debacle". All proceeds are going towards the medical expenses for DeHaas’ daily dialysis and kidney transplant. Ja Rule recently sold his Fyre Festival logo oil painting in NFT for $122,000.

A great article by Alexis Petridis about Pino Palladino, one of the world’s most celebrated bass players who has worked with Adele, Elton John, the Who, D’Angelo, Ed Sheeran, and many more, who is releasing his first solo album, a collaboration with Blake Mills. Welsh musician lives in California now - "Film and music studios are considered essential to the economy here – you’ve got to love that, right?. Mind you, that’s better than Britain telling you if you’re a musician or an artist you might have to look for a new job".

The Foo Fighters leader has announced 'The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music', a memoir made as a spinoff from his pandemic Instagram account, @davestruestories, through which he shares tales from his music career. Grohl emphasizes that he wrote the book himself, without a ghostwriter. In the YouTube player below, hear an 11-minute extract from the book, narrated by Grohl himself. The book, due out October 5 through Dey Street Books, is available to pre-order from the newly launched website davegrohlstoryteller.com.

"Listening is one of the hardest things for a musician to do. ‘Cause once you’ve achieved some things, you think you know it all. But you don’t know shit. So keeping your ears open and your mind open is the most important thing. Listen to others and then you’ll get better" - Mike Patton said in a Forbes interview, talking about the newest Tomahawk record. He also named a few artists he saw reinventing himself through their career: "I will say Tom Waits for sure has been one of those guys that jumps off always. And he catches another one. Nick Cave, another guy. I mean the guy can barely even sing. But he’s making amazing music and really, it’s compelling. And it’s orchestrated in a great way. I should say Bjork, too. Bjork really did that. I saw her grow up as a kid and then become whatever the hell she is now". Invisible Oranges recently made a Patton profile, going into his numerous projects.