A lovely story in the InsideHook about Frank Watkinson, a 68-year-old English grandfather whose YouTube channel has become an unexpected sensation during quarantine, thanks to his folk covers of songs by Bright Eyes, Neutral Milk Hotel, Death Cab For Cutie, Radiohead, as well as covers of A-ha and Slipknot, made in the same folk vein.

The Weeknd 'Blinding Lights' becomes the first song in Billboard Hot 100's history (which started in 1958) to spend a year in the top 10, as it logs its 52nd week in the region, Billboard reports. After debuting at No. 11 on the chart dated Nov. 14, 2019, it reached the top 10 on Feb. 29, 2020, and has spent all but two frames in the top tier since (ranking at Nos. 11 and 18 for two weeks in December).

Among artists 21.6% are women, 12.6% are songwriters, and 2.6% are producers - a new report on women inclusion in music by Annenberg shows (plenty of stats and graphs). Looking only at women of color, numbers go way lower - 9 of 1,291 producing credits went of to women of color.

This past January and February, New Zealand pop-rock band SIX60 held a Saturdays Tour, on consecutive weekends, playing to, all summed up, 125,000 people, Pollstar reports. Their tour began at Waitangi Sports Ground in Waitangi (Jan. 16) when they played to 20,000 people, as well as at Tomoana Showgrounds in Hastings (Jan. 23). The TSB Bowl of Brooklands in New Plymouth (Jan.30) attracted 15,000, Hagley Park in Christchurch (Feb. 6) had 23,000, The Wellington show was on Feb. 13 with 32,000, and the final date at Claudelands Oval in Hamilton was to 25,000 on Feb. 27. All this was possible thanks to New Zealand’s successful response to COVID-19. With no social distancing restrictions or bans on mass gatherings, no other act in the world has played to an audience that size in 2021 as well as for most of 2020.

The music industry has risen to meet the challenges of the pandemic, and Variety chose several women - artists and executives - who are leading the charge. They are UK pop star Dua Lipa, Natascha Augustin, Senior creative director in Warner Chappell Germany, K-pop stars Blackpink, Vanessa Craft, Director of content partnerships in TikTok Canada, and others...

Is it really a sale of a rent? Does the buyer get something special or just random? Are NFTs here to save the music industry or are they this year's credit default swaps? Who's selling, who's buying and what the hell are they? - MusicREDEF tries to explain Non-Fungible tokens in its latest thread.

Scottish duo Arab Strap released their first album in 16 years, and critics really like it. "With lyrics that encompass the reality of ageing with all its wisdom and regrets, and with music that employs the deftness of touch that can only come with long-term honing, Arab Strap have delivered their defining record" - NME argues. Guardian likes the wittiness of it: "Coming on like a union between Sleaford Mods and Leonard Cohen consummated in a Glasgow pub toilet, 'As Days Get Dark' serves up bleakness and gallows humour multiple ways: 'dejected, deserted and drunk'". PopMatters likes it the most - "This is a record as rare as hens' teeth: a comeback that not only beats expectations but has an excellent claim to be the band's crowning achievement". Band's members Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton turn back on their career for the Quietus - they chose 10 key points from their discography.

Foxing share a grand indie-rock/emo song 'Speak With The Dead' of near-epic proportions; Yerba Mansa shares violin noise in supremely-titled 'Jesus Christ Motorbike II'; Japanese screamos Lang share an easy-flowing 'Night Reeds'; Lyon-based Sathönay plays saz, an instrument similar to lute, on eastern Europe-influenced 'Doppio Picchio Verde'; Rachika Nayar shares ambient and noisy 'Losing Too Is Still Ours'; Greek black-metallers share a proggy 'The Sorcereer Above The Clouds'.

A beautiful story in BBC about ballerina Ilmira Bagrautinova from the world-renowned Mariinsky Theatre who, dressed in full costume, performs scenes from Tchaikovsky's 'Swan Lake' - on the frozen Gulf of Finland. It's her eco-protest against the construction of a port in Batareinaya Bay, a popular beach about 100 km west of St Petersburg. Bagrautinova told the BBC "we are hoping that nature, beauty and harmony will triumph".

A growing body of research more directly links air and road-traffic noise to heightened risks for a number of cardiovascular ailments, the Atlantic points out. Estimates suggest that roughly a third of Americans are regularly exposed to unhealthy levels of noise, typically defined as starting around 70 to 80 decibels. People living near the Frankfurt airport, for example, have as much as a 7 percent higher risk of stroke than those living in similar but quieter neighborhoods. An analysis of nearly 25,000 cardiovascular deaths between 2000 and 2015 among people living near Zurich’s airport saw significant increases in nighttime mortality after airplane flyovers, especially among women.

Popular digital audio workstations like Ableton, FL Studio, Logic, and Cubase were built primarily to facilitate music-making in a Western mode, according to the principles of European classical music. Recently, Khyam Allami, an Iraqi born in Syria and living in London, introduced Leimma and Apotome, two pieces of free software that aim to offer possibilities outside the Europan music canon. Leimma allows users to explore tuning systems from around the world or create their own, while Apotome offers generative music creation using these diverse tuning systems. They intend to give musicians a blank musical slate, rather than nudging them towards any specific musical tradition. Pitchfork presents both.

Lars-Göran “L-G” Petrov of the Swedish death-metal pioneers Entombed sadly passed away on Sunday, after a battle with cancer, at the age of 49, Louder reports. Entombed formed in 1989 out of the ashes of their previous band Nihilist, to release their groundbreaking debut LP 'Left Hand Path' in 1990. They changed the trajectory of the genre once again with their third album, 1993's 'Wolverine Blues', which helped pioneer the subgenre of death 'n' roll. Petrov left the band in 2014 and formed the offshoot band Entombed A.D., who went on to release three albums.

Adele has been named as the UK’s best-selling female album artist of the century by The British Phonographic Industry, according to Music Week. She holds the top spot above the stars such as P!nk, Madonna, Rihanna, Dido, Amy Winehouse, Kylie Minogue, Beyonce, Britney Spears, and Lady Gaga. Her second album, ‘21‘, also holds the title for the UK’s number one album by a female artist since 2000, after shifting just shy of 6 million copies in the UK alone. The new statistics have been unveiled to coincide with the confirmed return of National Album Day on October 21, which will adopt ‘Celebrating Women In Music’ as its 2021 theme.

Morgan Wallen’s 'Dangerous: The Double Album' holds on to the top of Billboard 200 chart for an eighth consecutive week, amidst the racial slur scandal. 'Dangerous' earned 82,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending March 4, which is a slight dip of 7% compared to the previous week, Billboard reports. 'Dangerous' now ties Taylor Swift’s 2020 album 'Folklore' for the second-most weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in the last five years -- among albums of all genres.

A total of 1,971 women were registered as professional songwriters and composers in 2020 in the UK, a 12.3% year-on-year increase compared to 2019, and a near twofold increase (79.6%) compared to 2018, when 1,097 women registered, Music Week reports. New figures released today (8 March), International Women’s Day 2021, show over half (58%) of women joining PRS for Music in 2020 were under the age of 30. However, gender balance within the professional songwriter and composer community remains heavily skewed towards men - male composers and songwriters make up 81.7% of PRS for Music’s membership, which is significantly higher than the music industry as a whole. The proportion of women working in the music industry had reached a record high of 49.6% in its latest Diversity Report for 2020. Also, the top 10 highest-earning female songwriters and composers generated 70% less income than their male counterparts in 2020.

London artist Nuha Nuby Ra has released her debut EP 'How To Move', an avant-garde pop record that draws from the punk DIY ethos in order to experiment with music. The Quietus hears Nuha Nuby Ra finding herself in opposition to many things on 'How To Move' – "convention, sensuality, misery, vexation – and transforms it all right in front of us". In the Wax Music interview, Nuha Nuby Ra explains what her influences are, and how she made her EP.

A great series of texts in Guardian by the members of Mogwai, Chic, Charlatans, Haim, Hot Chip and others about the joy of playing live. Chris of the Christine and the Queens goes all the way with her text: "I like the animalistic side of touring: it’s about being a nice beast on stage, you have to sniff things and feel things and adapt. I like the accidents, the awkwardness of it. It can be really humbling because you think you know your show, and then you learn it again because the audience reacts differently. I like the challenge – to prove myself on stage, to try to win people over. It’s almost like a Don Juan thing, every time you have to make love, and you have to find a different way".

Tame Impala played two sold-out, maskless concerts on Friday in Perth, as Tame Impala Sound System sets, bringing a sense of normalcy down under where the Covid-numbers are quite low, while the rest of the world is pretty much quarantined, NME reports. Tame Impala’s TISS sees Parker and co. reimagine tracks from the band’s discography with synths, sequencers, and samplers, creating "pulsating, fully live and organic, free-flowing digital jam out”.

A total of 1,300 people took part in a party on Saturday in Amsterdam's Ziggo Dome, which also acted as a research project, the Chronicle Herald reports. Dutch DJs Sam Feldt, Sunnery James & Ryan Marciano were playing as the party-goers were followed in all their movements and contacts through a tag they were made to wear, as part of an effort to examine how events may safely be opened up for the public again. The event was part of a series of government-backed tests that also include a business conference, two football matches and a comedy show – all of which have different rules for different groups, to see what works best.

"If Square wants to create new ways to help musicians sell real goods and digital goods, it could just do that. Instead, Square is paying $300 million for a failed music service that doesn’t help it accomplish any of those goals" - Vox argues in an analysis of Square-Tidal deal which saw Jack Dorsey paying Jay-Z $300 million for his service. "So, what you’re really left with here is a deal that looks like a way for Jack Dorsey to move money from his publicly traded company to a company owned by a guy he likes to hang out with" - Vox concludes. Variety did the math on 16 artist stakeholders of Tidal - Jay Z, Beyonce, Kanye West (pictured above), Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Jason Aldean, Madonna, Jack White, Arcade Fire’s Win Butler & Régine Chassagne, Usher, Nicki Minaj, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Calvin Harris, deadmau5, J. Cole and Daft Punk - who should expect to pocket $8.91 million apiece from this deal.

The original Turntable.fm site - shuttered in 2013, is back up and running, but there’s also Turntable.org, which will reportedly be launching in beta this April, the Verge reports. Turntable.fm lets users create a virtual room, then select what music they want to play for anyone listening; the song selection is currently limited to what’s available on YouTube. Turntable.org, the new version, mentions there will be a subscription fee.

Henry Goldrich was the man behind the music - literally, since he was the owner of Manny's Music store in New York. There, he had sold Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton their first wah-wah pedals, as well as other pieces of equipment to numerous musicians - David Gilmour, Pete Townsend, Sting, James Taylor, members of Lovin' Spoonful - helping them define their sound. The New York Times tells the nice story of the "gear guru to rock stars" who recently died.

The next release by the acclaimed Berlin-based label Habibi Funk, dedicated to music from the Arabic-speaking world, will be a compilation of recordings by renowned Lebanese musician Rogér Fakhr. 'Fine Anyway' is released on April 9, which will be this 1970s musician's widespread release and promotion, as the Quietus points out. Guardian has recently described the quest Habibi Punk's boss Jannis Stürtz has gone through to find the Arabic music he wanted to re-release.

St Vincent looks inside her family with her new album made while her father was getting out of prison (spent 9 years there for $43 million stock fraud), 'Pay Your Way In Pain' is the first glimpse into it; Duendita brings soul to a jazz band with 'Open Eyes'; steel pan player Fimber Bravo announces his new album with an afrobeat banger 'Hiyah Man'; 'Flock' is the stand-out track from Jane Weaver's new eclectic psych-pop album of the same name; this is just lovely - Suede's Brett Anderson and Nadine Shah cover Mercury Rev's 'Holes' with help from Paraorchestra, the world's first large-scale integrated virtuoso ensemble of professional disabled and non-disabled musicians; Maple Glider presents her great voice on 'Good Thing'; Julianknxx shares his activist hip-hop poetry on 'Basement'.

Producer, DJ and songwriter Laura Bettinson wants, well, basically, her life back: "The best nightclubs provide safe spaces for people from all walks of life. Nights out are when lifelong memories are made (or lost) and bonds formed with friends and strangers alike. The transference of energy on a packed, sweaty dancefloor is unlike anything else. On the best nights, everyone in the crowd is under the DJ’s command, their song selections determining a communal journey. This is why the concept of a socially distanced club night, which removes such spontaneity and physicality, just doesn’t work".

"I look at Rage and go, like, 'Fuck, we rely on an audience.' You go to Rage shows to see the audience as much as to see the band, and we need that. We're one of those bands that need that" - Rage Against the Machine bassist Tim Commerford told TooFab. He added - "We'll never be one of these sellouts that's gonna go play a drive-in show or play a venue that holds a hundred thousand people and there's only ten thousand people there. That's bullshit. Rage will never do that. It's not a good show unless the audience is going off too. It's gotta be a shared experience". In other RATM-related news, band's guitarist Tom Morello recently discussed his friendship with Ted Nugent, "known in the world" as "this right-wing caricature", as opposed to "the guy who shredded on 'Cat Scratch Fever'". They're friends because “It’s going to be things that Tom Morello and Ted Nugent have in common. I went down this long list: free speech advocates, love of rock & roll, respect for black artists who’ve created rock and roll. And the second, was things Ted Nugent taught an adolescent Tom Morello about sex”.

Poly Styrene was the frontwoman of influential UK band X-Ray Spex, the first woman of color to front a successful UK rock band, getting into punk which "she helped to define and energise", as Peter Bradshaw argues. A new "riveting and valuable documentary" about her life, 'Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché', co-directed by her daughter Celeste Bell, is out now. "There was something authentically heroic about Poly Styrene", Bradshaw adds (gives the docu 4 stars).

The movie 'Shoplifters of the World' is based on a (maybe) actual life incident from 1987 when an impassioned Smiths fan takes a local radio DJ hostage at gunpoint and forces him to play nothing but Smiths tracks for a night. The movie is coming out on March 26, starring Ellar Coltrane ('Boyhood') as the radio station hijacker and Joe Manganiello ('True Blood') as the radio station DJ.

K-pop stars BTS have been named the best-selling artists of 2020 by the IFPI, the organisation that represents the global recorded music industry, Forbes reports. The seven South Koreans are the first non-Western act to win, and the first whose songs are not predominantly sung in English. The boyband beat Taylor Swift (an American), who took the crown last year, into second place. Drake came third, with The Weeknd fourth (both are Canadian) and Billie Eilish at number five (she's an American). The award is calculated according to an artist or group's worldwide sales, downloads and streams, covering their whole body of work.

Germany’s revenues from physical music sales and streaming grew 9% year-on-year to €1.79 billion in 2020, Music Business Worldwide reports. A good portion of 71.5% of revenues came from digital music, growing 24.6% in a year, from €1.13bn to €1.27bn. CD sales in the market fell 18% YoY, remaining the second-strongest format in the German recorded market with a 21.6% share of sales in 2020. totalling €387m. Vinyl revenues grew 24.7% YoY to €99m, and had an overall market share of 5.5%.